Dental Anxiety and its Associated Factors Among Patients Visiting Outpatient Department of Different Tertiary Care Dental Hospitals of Karachi

Objective: To assess dental anxiety and its  associated  factors  among  patients  visiting  OPD  of  differ- ent tertiary care dental hospitals of Karachi. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from April 2018 to November 2018 in two public and     two private dental colleges of Karachi namely Karachi Medical  and  Dental  College,  Dr.  Ishrat-ul-Ibal  Khan  Institute  of  Oral  Health  Sciences,  Hamdard  Dental  College  and  Baqai  Dental  College.  Being aged ³ 18 years of either gender were the inclusion criteria whereas refusal for a written informed consent was the exclusion criterion.After checking eligibility and taking written informed consent, a total of 247 participants were interviewed by the principal investigator using a questionnaire which  included  Corah's Dental Anxiety Scale and Dental Concerns Assessment. Data were entered and  analyzed  on SPSS version 20. Inferential analysis was performed using  chi-square  test  and  Mann-Whitney  U  test after checking normality. The significance level was kept at 0.05. Results: The study findings revealed that 2.4%  of  the  patients  interviewed  were  severely  anxious,  8.1% were highly anxious, 37.2% were moderately anxious while 54.3% were not  at  all  anxious.  Moreover, patients with younger age and monthly household  income  between  16000  and  75000  ru- pees had significantly higher mean dental anxiety scores. Conclusion: The study findings revealed that up to 45.7% patients were anxious up to some degree. There is a need for better understanding of factors potentially increasing anxiety in dental patients in order to avoid them as negative experiences in past are known to trigger dental anxiety in future.