Dental fear and pain: effect on patient's perception of the dentist

A questionnaire was developed including the Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS) and the Dental Beliefs Survey (DBS) as subscales to examine the epidemiology of dental fear and dental beliefs in Germany. The survey was administered before treatment to a sample of 474 dental patients. Of the respondents 56% were female. The mean age was 34.3 yr (SD 12.4 yr). The mean DAS score was 8.6 (SD 3.7). Mean DBS score ranged from 1.73 to 2.75 for single items. The correlation between DAS and DBS scores was highly significant (rs = 0.39, P less than 0.001). Absence or presence of dental pain revealed significant differences for DAS and DBS scores (P less than 0.001). Both tests are valid screening forms for the German linguistic context and easy to implement in daily dental routine.