Abstract

The authors have carried out a survey regarding 1500 students whose age ranged from 9 to 18 years. They belonged to some public schools of Gioia del Colle, a small town near the city of Bari. The aim of the study was to evaluate the dentist fear, the levels of anxiety and the main reasons or situations which can cause it. A questionnaire has been used for this purpose: the Dental Subscale Test. Results have shown that the 38.7% of the people questioned, has asserted to be afraid of the dentist and that this fear is much more felt in women than in men. Moreover has been demonstrated that this fear overcomes amongst those who have never undergone a dental treatment and that the degree of anxiety decreases from childhood to adulthood. In addition statistics analysis have proved that the sensation of choking, the sight and the sound of surgical instruments such as the drill and the fear of injections, are amongst those items which can be referred as the most frequent sources of anxiety for both males and females.