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Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Swedish version of the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale
Markus Höglund1, Emma Göranson2, Inger Wårdh3
1Center for Orofacial Medicine, Public Dental Service Östergötland, Linköping, Sweden; Department of Dental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Huddinge, Sweden. markus.hoglund@ki.se.
Introduction:
The impact of dental anxiety is profound. At the same time, dental anxiety is sometimes difficult to detect. Therefore, a patient-reported outcome measure is needed. The Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS) is a short, internationally used self-assessment questionnaire for screening of dental anxiety.
Aim:
To cross-culturally adapt the original English MDAS to Swedish (MDAS-S), and to validate it in a Swedish setting.
Materials And Methods:
The adaptation was conducted in accordance with recommended guidelines. Field testing was performed both among adults presenting for their regular dental check-ups and among adults diagnosed by a psychologist as dentally phobic.
Results:
The MDAS-S was formed during the adaptation procedure. Field testing included 246 adults presenting for their regular dental check-ups and 7 adults diagnosed with dental phobia. The MDAS-S score was significantly higher (p < 0.001) in the dentally phobic group than in the regular dental check-up group. Reliability was good with Cronbach's Alpha values between 0.880 to 0.909. Test-retest of 37 individuals showed an excellent Intraclass Correlation Coefficient of 0.956. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) finds support for a two-factor model although with 78% shared variance between the factors.
Conclusions:
The MDAS-S demonstrates good reliability and appears valid as a screening tool for dental anxiety among Swedish adults.
