Reliability and validity of the Dutch version of the social attributes of Dental Anxiety Scale

The aim of the present study was to assess the reliability and (factorial) validity of the Dutch version of the Social Attributes of Dental Anxiety Sc ale (SADAS). A factor analysis using the English version of the SADAS revea led two separate scales. The first eight items involved unwanted psychologi cal upsets when patients encounter dental care directly; the four remaining items were about social inhibitions or restrictions due to the perceived s tate of oral health. Psychometric properties of the Dutch version were asse ssed using a sample of 170 highly anxious dental patients of a dental fear clinic in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS) and th e Short version of the Dental Anxiety Inventory (S-DAI) were used as measur es of dental anxiety. Factor analysis revealed that four factors explained 72.8% of the variance, and two forcedly extracted factors explained 53.4% o f the variance. Correlations indicated that the SADAS does measure a differ ent concept than dental anxiety. In addition, t-tests indicated that the SA DAS was able to discriminate between a group of non-anxious individuals and the present group of patients. In conclusion, the SADAS is a promising new questionnaire with moderate factorial, but with more than sufficient relia bility, as well as construct and discriminant validity.