Psychological disorders and dental anxiety in a young adult population

Objectives. It has been suggested that some individuals who are fearful or anxious about dental treatment have a constitutional vulnerability to anxie ty disorders as evidenced by the presence of multiple fears, generalized an xiety or panic disorders. This paper compares the prevalence of psychologic al disorders among dentally anxious and non-anxious groups drawn from the g eneral population. Methods: Data were obtained as part of a birth cohort st udy when study members were aged 18 years. They were assessed using the Den tal Anxiety Scale (DAS) and the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS). The di sorders diagnosed by the DIS were major depressive episode, dysthymia, gene ralized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia, social phobia, simpl e phobia, obsessive compulsive disorder, conduct disorder, cannabis and alc ohol 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 dent ally 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 t he non-anxious in terms of their psychological profile. This excess prevale nce of psychological disorder was largely accounted for by high rates of di sorder 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 diagnos is of conduct disorder, agoraphobia, social phobia, simple phobia or alcoho l dependence. Odds ratios ranged from 2.8 to 5.0 after controlling for the effects of gender. The data also suggested that dentally anxious individual s with psychological disorders were more likely to maintain their anxiety o ver time. Conclusions: In this population of young adults, high rates of ps ychological disorder were characteristic of those with high levels of denta l anxiety. Psychological disorder was related to the maintenance of dental anxiety over time.