Use of dental services and oral health status of adolescents between 12 and 15 years of age: Their relation to dental fear.

摘要

Recent studies have shown that the fear of clinical dental treatment (dental fear) not only remains a problem to this day, but has most likely been underestimated over the years, with a prevalence as high as 15 to 20% in the general population. Also, the latest Canadian surveys on adolescents' oral health condition, indicate that the utilization of dental health care services has reached a plateau over the last 5 to 10 years, with an attenders rate varying between 70 and 80% for adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15 years. Furthermore, and most interestingly, nearly two-thirds of all caries for that population are held by a mere 10 to 12% of them. The author observes that, although from a psychological perspective there is a well known link between fear and avoidance, and that it is logical to presume that avoidance of oral health care will cause poor dental health, no empirical study has actually established the relationship between those variables. In order to do so, a study was designed to determine whether or not there were any differences in dental health and dental service utilization between subjects with different levels of dental fear. Accordingly, 1,063 students, between 12 and 15 years of age, were screened for dental fear using the Cognitive Inventory of Dental Fear for Adolescents (Morin et al., 1987). On the basis of their scores, they were then separated into three groups corresponding to low, medium and high levels of fear. In each group, 86 subjects were selected for comparison. Their dental health status was examined using epidemiologically-based dental health indexes, as recommended by the World Health Organization. The utilization of dental services was also assessed. Results revealed a significantly lower utilization of services and significantly poorer dental health indexes (higher DMFT and DMFS scores) within the high fear group only. Thus, it would appear that oral health status and utilization of dental services may in fact be affected by dental fear. However, dental fear must be severe before any effect can be observed.