A new study, ‘Are people with dental fear under-represented in oral epidemiological surveys,’ is now available. “Dental phobia is associated with poorer dental attendance so epidemiological surveys requiring participants to undertake a dental examination may result in an under-representation of participants with high dental fear. We compared the dental fear distribution of participants and non-participants in an oral examination component of a national epidemiological survey of oral health,” researchers in Australia report (see also Epidemiology).

“Of 12,606 in-scope dentate people aged 15+ who completed a structured computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) survey, 5,505 (43.7%) participated in the oral examination. Dental fear was assessed with a single-item measure in the CATI. There was a significant difference between the percentages of participants and non-participants who rated themselves as ‘extremely’ afraid, although the absolute difference (1.9%) was small. The association between extreme dental fear and participation was significant (OR=0.66, 95% CI=0.56-0.77) in multivariate analyses after controlling for possible confounders. Females with extreme dental fear were also significantly less likely to undertake an oral examination,” wrote J.M. Armfield and colleagues, University of Adelaide, Australian Research Center for Population Oral Health.

The researchers concluded: “Even though people with dental fear and phobia may delay or avoid dental visits, they do not appear to be appreciably under-represented in oral epidemiological surveys.”

Armfield and colleagues published their study in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology (Are people with dental fear under-represented in oral epidemiological surveys? Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 2009;44(6):495-500).

For additional information, contact J.M. Armfield, University of Adelaide, Australian Research Centre for Population Oral Health, School of Dentistry, 122 Frome Road, Adelaide, SA, 5000, Australia.

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