Psychological disorders and dental anxiety in a young adult population.
OBJECTIVE
It has been suggested that some individuals who are fearful or anxious about dental treatment have a constitutional vulnerability to anxiety disorders as evidenced by the presence of multiple fears, generalized anxiety or panic disorders. This paper compares the prevalence of psychological disorders among dentally anxious and non-anxious groups drawn from the general population.


METHODS
Data were obtained as part of a birth cohort study when study members were aged 18 years. They were assessed using the Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS) and the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS). The disorders diagnosed by the DIS were major depressive episode, dysthymia, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia, social phobia, simple phobia, obsessive compulsive disorder, conduct disorder, cannabis and alcohol dependence.


RESULTS
Overall, 12.5% of study members had DAS scores of 13 or more and were considered to be dentally anxious. Those who were dentally anxious were more likely than the non-anxious to be diagnosed with one or more psychological disorders (55.0% vs. 42.3%). However, those with DAS scores of 13 or 14 (moderately dentally anxious) were broadly similar to the non-anxious in terms of their psychological profile. This excess prevalence of psychological disorder was largely accounted for by high rates of disorder among those with DAS scores of 15 or more (highly dentally anxious). The highly anxious were more likely than the non-anxious to have a diagnosis of conduct disorder, agoraphobia, social phobia, simple phobia or alcohol dependence. Odds ratios ranged from 2.8 to 5.0 after controlling for the effects of gender. The data also suggested that dentally anxious individuals with psychological disorders were more likely to maintain their anxiety over time.


CONCLUSIONS
In this population of young adults, high rates of psychological disorder were characteristic of those with high levels of dental anxiety. Psychological disorder was related to the maintenance of dental anxiety over time.
Locker
D
D
Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto, 124 Edward Street, Toronto, Ontario M5G 1G6, Canada. david.locker@utoronto.ca
Poulton
R
R
Thomson
W M
WM
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D019973:Alcohol-Related Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D015331:Cohort Studies; D019955:Conduct Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology; D016854:Dental Anxiety / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology; D019263:Dysthymic Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D002189:Marijuana Abuse / Q000453:epidemiology; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D009520:New Zealand / Q000453:epidemiology; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology; D016017:Odds Ratio; D016584:Panic Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology; D015995:Prevalence; D012737:Sex Factors; D013223:Statistics as Topic