Dental Anxiety and its Associated Factors Among Patients Visiting Outpatient Department of Different Tertiary Care Dental Hospitals of Karachi

Objective: To assess dental anxiety and its associated factors among patients visiting OPD of different tertiary care dental hospitals of Karachi. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from April 2018 to November 2018 in two public and two private dental colleges of Karachi namely Karachi Medical and Dental College, Dr. Ishrat-ul-Ibal Khan Institute of Oral Health Sciences, Hamdard Dental College and Baqai Dental College. Being aged 18 years of either gender were the inclusion criteria whereas refusal for a written informed consent was the exclusion criterion.After checking eligibility and taking written informed consent, a total of 247 participants were interviewed by the principal investigator using a questionnaire which included Corah's Dental Anxiety Scale and Dental Concerns Assessment. Data were entered and analyzed on SPSS version 20. Inferential analysis was performed using chi-square test and Mann-Whitney U test after checking normality. The significance level was kept at 0.05. Results: The study findings revealed that 2.4% of the patients interviewed were severely anxious, 8.1% were highly anxious, 37.2% were moderately anxious while 54.3% were not at all anxious. Moreover, patients with younger age and monthly household income between 16000 and 75000 rupees had significantly higher mean dental anxiety scores. Conclusion: The study findings revealed that up to 45.7% patients were anxious up to some degree. There is a need for better understanding of factors potentially increasing anxiety in dental patients in order to avoid them as negative experiences in past are known to trigger dental anxiety in future.