title: Reliability and validity of the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale in Turkish patients.
abstract: We aimed to determine dental anxiety among Turkish patients and assess the sensitivity, specificity, positive/negative predictive values and reliability of the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS) and Corah's Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS). Patients referred to our clinic for dental treatment who had a history of dental anxiety were included in the study. 294 randomly selected patients (mean age 38.8 years) completed a questionnaire combining Corah's DAS and MDAS. They were retested 15 days later. The prevalence of dental anxiety was found to be 9.9% (29/294) for Corah's DAS at the cut-off point > or = 15 and 8.8% (26/294) for the MDAS at the cut-off point > or = 19. Both dental anxiety scales gave acceptable sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values at these cut-off points.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral Diagnosis and Radiology, Faculty of Dentistry, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey. ilguy@yeditepe.edu.tr
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ilgüy
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ilgüy
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dinçer
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bayirli
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016854:Dental Anxiety; D003812:Dentist-Patient Relations; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors; D014421:Turkey