Prevalence of and factors associated with dental anxiety among medical and dental students of the Northern State Medical University, Arkhangelsk, North-West Russia

ABSTRACT

The objective was to assess the prevalence of and factors associated with dental anxiety (DA) in medical and dental students in North-West Russia. This cross-sectional study included 422 medical and 285 dental undergraduate Russian students aged 18–25 years from the Northern State Medical University in Arkhangelsk. Corah’s Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS) was applied to measure DA. Information on socio-demographic and socioeconomic factors, oral health behaviour and general and oral health was obtained from a structured, self-administered questionnaire. A clinical examination was performed to assess caries experience, Simplified Oral Hygiene Index, and Gingival Index. DAS score ≥13 was found in 13.7% and 2.2% of medical and dental students, respectively. Female sex (incidence rate ratio [IRR] = 1.11, p = 0.013), lower education of mother (IRR = 1.13, p = 0.001), and poor self-assessed oral health (IRR = 1.15, p < 0.001) were associated with DA in medical students. Corresponding factors in dental students were female sex (IRR = 1.16, p = 0.001), irregular dental visits (IRR = 1.19, p = 0.001), infrequent tooth-brushing (IRR = 1.17, p = 0.007), pain in mouth (IRR = 1.09, p = 0.031) and number of missing teeth (IRR = 1.13, p = 0.007). The prevalence of high DA was lower in dental students than in medical students. DA was associated with sex, mother’s education, poor oral health behaviour and self-assessed and clinically assessed oral health.

KEYWORDS:

• Dental anxiety
• medical and dental students
• North-West Russia

Acknowledgments

The authors thank UiT The Arctic University of Norway for financial support; the Norwegian Barents Secretariat and the Barents Plus for travelling funds; the administration of the NSMU for help in organising the data collection; all students who participated in the study; and Vitalina Yureva, Valentina Lisaya, Elena Latuhina and Valentina Chernysheva for assistance during field work and dataset development. We would like to thank Trudy Perdrix-Thoma at Professional Standards Editing, Inc. for her excellent English language editing.

Authors’ contributions

SND and TAT created the study concept, design and methodology. SND carried out data collection and data entry. TB and TAT supervised data collection and data entry. SND, TB and TAT analysed and interpreted the data. SND, TB and TAT drafted, critically reviewed, commented on and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by ARKTROPP, Department of Community Medicine, UiT The Arctic University of Norway. The publication charges for this article have been funded by a grant from the publication fund of UiT The Arctic University of Norway;Publication fund of UiT The Arctic University of Norway [Account 6821, department 450000, project 551011, VAT code 8U];