Influence of educational level on dental anxiety and understanding special medical vocabulary in women

Abstract

The aim of the study was to determine how well Ukrainian women perceive and understand information provided at the dentist’s depending on educational level, to assess the role of vocabulary on dental-patient communication. Data for analysis were collected by questionnaire from 358 women aged 18–75 years from Poltava and Zaporizhzhia regions. The questionnaire consisted of 19 questions, 5 of which were taken from the Modified Scale of Dental Anxiety, the others were determined by the authors. The obtained results were statistically processed. The respondents’ characteristics in this study are as follows: with higher education (65.6%), with special secondary (25%) and upper secondary education (9.4%). It was found that 6% of the respondents’ have dentophobia; 12% – high anxiety, and 21% – moderate anxiety; 62% – low anxiety. The impact of medical vocabulary on communication is assessed by respondents as "negative" by 30% and "positive" by 28% of respondents. Unfamiliar words cause "more trust" in 60%, 40%, 36% of the participants, "more anxiety" in 38%, 53%, and 56% of women with upper secondary, special secondary, higher education respectively. The level of availability of the words "endodontic treatment" naturally increases with increasing level of education: the option `do not understand` in groups upper secondary, special secondary, higher education has chosen 88%, 76%, 61% of respondents, respectively. To conclude, high dental anxiety level and dentophobia are more prevalent among respondents with special secondary and higher education. Dentists should minimize the presence of medical terms during their conversations with patients, especially low educational patients. These steps should positively affect dentist-patient communication and psychological aspects of dental treatment in total. Keywords: dental care, medication adherence, psychometrics, surveys and questionnaires.