CORRELATES OF DENTAL ANXIETY AMONG OLDER ADULTS

This paper reports on a study of dental anxiety among adults aged 50 years and over living independently in two communities in Ontario, Canada. Subjects were identified by means of a telephone survey based on random-digit dialing. Data on dental anxiety were collected from 580 subjects by means of a self-completed questionnaire and were measured by the Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS) (Corah, 1969). The mean DAS score was 7.8, and 8.4% of subjects were classified as dentally anxious. Age was the only demographic factor associated with dental anxiety. Older individuals had lower DAS scores than younger individuals (p < 0.0001). There was also a significant association between dental anxiety and general fearfulness measured by the Fear Survey Schedule II (Geer, 1965) (r = 0.31; p < 0.001). A series of regression analyses revealed that dental anxiety was a significant predictor of a number of behavioral and oral health outcomes. While these results confirm that dental anxiety is less prevalent among older adults than in younger populations, it has a number of important consequences with respect to dental care provision.