Degree of concern or anxiety about dental procedures at dental waiting room

Abstract

The purpose of the present work is to assess the level of concern or anxiety about dental procedures at a dental waiting room. To achieve such purpose, the translated Dental Concerns Assessment (DCA) survey was administered to 233 patients at the waiting room of the Dental Service of the Hospital Regional Rancagua. The survey assessed 26 dental procedures. The anxiety scale had 4 levels (low, moderate, high, does not know). The age of the patients was stratified into 4 age groups, and the answers were compared between age groups.

Results: the highest levels of concern were caused by the cost of therapies (156 patients), the need of more than one procedure (131), the number of visits and time related to these (118), pain (117), fear of the shot (111), endodontic therapy (104) and by the sounds of the device used in dental cleaning (96). The procedure causing the less anxiety was x-rays (26).