Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34922500›Full record

ArticleBMC oral health2021

Psychometric evaluation of the Lebanese Arabic version of the Dental Fear Survey: a cross-sectional study.

Hiba Kassem El Hajj, Youssef Fares, Linda Abou-Abbas

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Article in BMC oral health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

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4citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

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3 · Its place in the literature

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4 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Hiba Kassem El HajjNeuroscience Research Center, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon.
Youssef FaresNeuroscience Research Center, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon.
Linda Abou-AbbasNeuroscience Research Center, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon. l.abouabbas@ul.edu.lb.ORCID 0000-0001-9185-3831

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundDental fear is a prevalent problem that can lead to poor dental health. The Kleinknecht's Dental Fear Survey (DFS) is one of the used scales to assess dental fear. The present study aims to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Lebanese Arabic version of the DFS (DFS-A) and to determine the optimal cut-off to identify dental fear as well as the correlates of dental fear in a group of Lebanese adults dental patients.

methodsA cross-sectional study was conducted among a group of 442 dental patients (18-65 years) recruited at 29 dental clinics from March to June 2019. Patients completed a questionnaire including questions about demographic characteristics, previous bad dental experience, trauma's experience period, the sensation of nausea during dental treatment, the DFS-A scale, the Lebanese Arabic version of the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS-A), and a general question about dental fear.

resultsDFS-A revealed evidence of adequate psychometric properties. DFS-A scale demonstrated high internal consistency (cronbach's alpha = 0.93). Test-retest reliability assessment demonstrated strong reproducibility of the DFS-A scale score (ICC = 0.92 with 95% CI (0.83-0.96), p value < 0.0001 (N = 30). Confirmatory factor analysis revealed a three-factor structure of the DFS-A reflecting fear associated with specific dental stimuli and procedures, patterns of dental avoidance and anticipatory anxiety, and physiologic arousal during dental treatment. A significant correlation was found between DFS-A and the MDAS-A indicating a good convergent validity. The optimal cut-off point to identify patients with and without dental fear is 41. Considering this cut-off score, the prevalence of dental fear in our sample was reported at 33.8%. Multivariable analysis showed that having previous scary and painful dental experiences, a sensation of nausea during treatment, and having dental anxiety were identified as predictors of dental fear.

conclusionThe adapted Arabic version of the DFS (DFS-A) is a valid tool to evaluate dental fear among Lebanese adult patients.

Indexed as

Dental AnxietyAdultCross-Sectional StudiesHumansPsychometricsReproducibility of ResultsSurveys and QuestionnairesArabic versionDental Fear SurveyDFSLebanesePsychometric properties

Identifiers

PMID34922500
PMCPMC8683824

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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.