ArticleSocial psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology2009
Are people with dental fear under-represented in oral epidemiological surveys?
Article in Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 2009. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Level of Dental Anxiety and Its Role Among Barriers to Habitual Use of Oral Health Care in Adult Finns.Dentistry journal · 2026Article
- Publication Performance and Trends in Dental Anxiety Research: A Comprehensive Bibliometric Analysis.International journal of dentistry · 2026Review
- Held still or pressured to receive dental treatment: self-reported histories of children and adolescents treated by non-specialist dentists in Hordaland, Norway.European archives of paediatric dentistry : official journal of the European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry · 2022Article
- Does previous dental care experience make the child less anxious? An evaluation of anxiety and fear of pain.European archives of paediatric dentistry : official journal of the European Academy of Paediatric Dentistry · 2021Article
- Determining Cut-Off Points for the Dental Fear Survey.TheScientificWorldJournal · 2015Article
- Pathways of fear and anxiety in dentistry: A review.World journal of clinical cases · 2014Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDental phobia is associated with poorer dental attendance so epidemiological surveys requiring participants to undertake a dental examination may result in an under-representation of participants with high dental fear.
methodWe compared the dental fear distribution of participants and non-participants in an oral examination component of a national epidemiological survey of oral health. Of 12,606 in-scope dentate people aged 15+ who completed a structured computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) survey, 5,505 (43.7%) participated in the oral examination. Dental fear was assessed with a single-item measure in the CATI.
resultsThere was a significant difference between the percentages of participants and non-participants who rated themselves as "extremely" afraid, although the absolute difference (1.9%) was small. The association between extreme dental fear and participation was significant (OR = 0.66, 95% CI = 0.56-0.77) in multivariate analyses after controlling for possible confounders. Females with extreme dental fear were also significantly less likely to undertake an oral examination.
conclusionEven though people with dental fear and phobia may delay or avoid dental visits, they do not appear to be appreciably under-represented in oral epidemiological surveys.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.