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Objectives: Fear of dentistry is a common obstacle to obtaining dental care in Turkey. The aim of this study was to assess the reliability, validity and psychometric characteristics of the Turkish translation of the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS) and compare it to the Dental Fear Survey (DFS) scores obtained in the same population. Methods: The Turkish translated version of the MDAS was administered to 115 dental patients; 21 subjects who suffered from dental phobia, requiring general anesthesia for dental procedures, and 94 who did not have dental anxiety, in addition to 442 subjects from the general population. Results: The Turkish translated version of the MDAS was internally consistent and reproducible. The patients with dentist phobia had the highest score. The Turkish MDAS correlated with the DFS ( r = 0.80, P < 0.001). The MDAS scale correlated inversely ( r = −0.14, P < 0.005) with level of education; however, it did not correlate with economic status. Women scored higher than men on the scale (mean = 12.3, SD = 5.2 vs. mean = 10.9, SD = 4.5, P < 0.005). At a cut-off point ≥15, sensitivity was 0.80, specificity 0.74, positive predictive value 0.41 and negative predictive value 0.94. Conclusion: Although the specificity values were low, the Turkish MDAS demonstrated acceptable sensitivity, positive and negative predictive values. Thus, high reliability and validity of the MDAS supports its cross-cultural validity and indicated that it may be a valuable tool in quantifying fear of dentistry among Turks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the exception of studies of children, how dental anxiety changes with aging has not been the topic of research. Studies of non-patient populations have been cross-sectional in design and no truly longitudinal data have been reported. In this study, 272 adults aged 50 yr and over completed the Dental Anxiety Scale at baseline and at a 3-yr follow-up. The main finding was that DAS scores showed a high degree of stability in this group of subjects. At baseline the mean DAS score was 7.6 and at follow-up it was 7.4. The proportion classified as having high levels of anxiety declined marginally from 7.0% to 5.4%. While 9.0% of subjects showed changes in DAS scores of 4 or more, it is not certain that this represents real change or a degree of unreliability in the measure. The only subject characteristic associated with change in scores was gender. The mean scores for men decreased while the mean scores for Women increased. Overall, the magnitude of these changes was very small. However, for a minority of subjects more substantial changes were observed which may be clinically significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]