THE EFFECT OF THE EDUCATION LEVELS OF DENTAL STUDENTS ON THEIR DENTAL ANXIETY

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare dental anxiety levels among first-, second-, third-, fourth- and fifth-year dental students. To evaluate the level of dental anxiety against dental interventions, online questionnaires were applied to first year (n=96), second year (n=96), third year (n=109), fourth year (n=107) and fifth year (n=92) dental students. The students' demographic information (age, gender) was also recorded. These questionnaires included the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS). The students whose MDAS score was ≥19 were considered as highly anxious. The statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 24 (IBM SPSS, USA). This study was conducted with a total of 500 students including 220 male and 280 female students. The students with an MDAS score of 19 (having dental anxiety) were 23 people (4.6%) in total. No statistically significant difference was found between the class years of the students in terms of their mean MDAS scores (p: 0.387). When the responses given to the 5 items in MDAS were evaluated, only the responses given to the 1st and 5th questions had statistically significant differences (p