Exploratory factor analysis of a sixty-item questionnaire concerned with fear of dental treatment

701 dental-school outpatients rated the degree of fear occasioned by each of 60 events that occur routinely during dental treatment. The 4,206 ratings then were subjected to principal components factor analysis with oblique rotation. Four meaningful factors were deduced: fear of pain and its antecedents, anticipatory fear, fear of negative evaluation, and fear due to perceived absence of control over the dentist. This outcome is compared and contrasted with results of other attempts to delineate the components of dental fear.