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.
Highlights
Dental fear is a prevalent problem that can lead to poor dental health
The minimum and maximum total scores obtained from the Dental Fear Survey (DFS)-A scale were 20 and 100 points
The present study was conducted to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Lebanese Arabic version of the DFS and to identify the factors associated with dental fear
Summary
The Kleinknecht’s Dental Fear Survey (DFS) is one of the used scales to assess dental fear. Dental fear is a prevalent condition that affects all populations worldwide [1]. It is defined as an “individual’s response to an actual threatening event or a dangerous. One of the most used tool is the Kleinknecht’s Dental Fear Survey (DFS) [5]. The DFS scale could act as a screening tool, among others screening tools, to identify these patients appropriate strategies could be applied to alleviate their fears such as some premedication (nitrous oxide, diazepam, antiemetic drug...), some relaxation techniques (muscle relaxation, diaphragmatic breathing...), appointments planning with less waiting time, distraction strategies such as watching movies during dental treatment and many others
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