| Abstract [eng] |
Relevance of the problem and aim of the work. Dental anxiety/fear is a condition experienced by dental patients all over the world. It affects patients‘ emotional and physiological state, behavior and oral health. Dentists deal not only with fearful children, but also with fearful adults. It is important to understand the extent of the prevalence of fearful adult patients and the impact of dental fear on their oral health – related quality of life, in order to better understand such patients, and choose an appropriate strategy for their dental treatment process. The aim of this work is to determine how widespread the dental anxiety/fear is and what influence does it have on the oral health-related quality of life of adult residents of Vilnius. Material and the methods. During November of 2023 – January of 2024, a quantitative pilot survey was conducted and 140 adult residents of Vilnius city were surveyed and included in the study. The questionnaire included general questions, questions related to personal oral hygiene habits, questions related to dental treatment attendance, the MDAS questionnaire and the OHIP-14 questionnaire. The obtained data were analyzed using IBM SPSS 29.0 software. Results. The study found that the prevalence of dental fear in the study population is 30.7%. Of the fearful subjects, 51.2% have moderate dental fear, and 48.8% have strong dental fear. Stronger dental fear is significantly directly correlated with worse oral health-related quality of life (p<0.001), the correlation was found to be moderately strong (r=0.381). Oral health-related quality of life is significantly different between fearful and non-fearful subjects (p=0.002). Subjects, who have dental fear attend dental treatment visits significantly less often (p=0,002). Conclusions. Dental fear is common among adult residents of Vilnius city. Dental fear is associated with poorer oral health-related quality of life: the stronger the fear, the worse the oral health-related quality of life. |
