Dental Fear and Subjective Oral Impacts among Adults in Finland

Objectives: Our aim was to evaluate if dental fear and subjective oral impacts were associated among Finnish adults.

Materials and methods: The two-stage stratified cluster sample (n=8028) represented Finnish adults aged 30 years and older. Dental fear was measured with the question: “How afraid are you of visiting a dentist?” Subjective oral impacts were measured with OHIP-14 questionnaire. The percentage of people reporting at least one OHIP-14 impact fairly often or very often (prevalence) and the mean sum of OHIP-14 impacts (severity) were calculated and compared among participants with different levels of dental fear. Statistical significances of the differences were assessed with chi-square and Kruskall-Wallis tests.

Results: Both prevalence and severity were highest among those who were very afraid of visiting a dentist. The prevalence among those who were very, somewhat or not at all afraid of visiting a dentist were 14.7%, 8.3% and 10.2%, respectively (p<0.001). The corresponding percentages were 13.6%, 7.8% and 9.5% among men (p=0.112), and 15.1%, 8.6% and 11.1% among women (p=0.004), respectively. The mean severity scores were 5.4 (SE 0.35), 4.0 (0.18) and 3.8 (0.12) (p<0.001) among those who were very, somewhat or not at all afraid of visiting a dentist, respectively. The corresponding scores were 6.4 (0.72), 4.6 (0.31) and 3.8 (0.17) among men, (p<0.001), and 5.0 (0.41), 3.6 (0.21), and 3.7 (0.12) among women (p=0.05), respectively.

Conclusion: Our results indicated more subjective oral impacts among those who were very afraid of visiting a dentist than among those who were somewhat or not at all afraid. The results of this nationally representative study confirm the results of earlier studies according which people with high dental fear report more often poor oral health-related quality of life than people with lower dental fear.