The factor structure of the Dental Fear Survey applied to private general practice patients awaiting dental treatment

Objectives Factor analysis of the Dental Fear Sun ey (DFS), applied to patients awaiting dental treatment in an average private practice general dental clinic in comparison to other analyses.;Method A combination of secondary and primary data. The latter were obtained from 145 consecutive self-referred patients (89 women, 56 men, aged between 17 and 82 years) at a private dental clinic, responding to an anonymous questionnaire. In analyses, principal components and principal axes factor analysis were used with varimax and oblimin rotations. Cronbach's alpha was calculated. Results There were differences in factor loading patterns between materials. No generally valid pattern could be discerned. Congruence between materials was higher for communalities. Oblimin rotation resulted in highly correlated factors. Excluding items with lower loadings yielded a clear one-factor solution. Cronbach's alpha was very high (0.96) for a one-factor solution on the primary material. Conclusions The DFS may well be used as a measure of dental fear, but the dimensionality of the measure is more doubtful according to the present result. The DFS could be reduced to a unidimensional measure. Tn the clinical situation, a short measure such as the Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS) could be used fur screening, giving guidance about whether the patient is afraid. For those with higher scores on the DAS, the DFS could be used for purposes of greater discrimination.