Anxiety among Patients Visiting for Periodontal Therapy in a Tertiary Care Dental Hospital: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study

INTRODUCTION: The aetiological factors of dental fear include negative information, witnessing or having a bad experience, and negative conditions related to periodontal treatment. Modified Dental Anxiety Scale Nepali version, is one of the tools used in epidemiological studies to measure dental anxiety in adults. The objective was to find out the prevalence of anxiety among dental patients visiting for periodontal therapy in a tertiary care hospital. METHODS: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among patients visiting for periodontal therapy from November 2020 to January 2021 at a tertiary care dental hospital. Ethical clearance from Institutional Review Committee (Reference no. 0311202001) was taken before the study. Convenient sampling was done. A standard questionnaire for dental anxiety was used for data collection after receiving informed consent from the participants. Data were entered and analyzed in Microsoft Excel Sheet. Descriptive data are presented as means, standard deviations, frequencies, and percentages. RESULTS: Among a total of 311 participants visiting for periodontal therapy, 297 (95.49%) (92.57-97.42 at 95% Confidence Interval) were having anxiety. Among total patients, 113 (36.33%) were fairly anxious, 111 (35.69%) were slightly anxious, 62 (19.94%) very anxious and 11 (3.54%) were extremely anxious. Majority of males 54 (17.36%) were slightly anxious while most females 67 (21.54%) were fairly anxious. Mean Modified Dental Anxiety Scale-Nepali score of all the participants was 11.59±3.808. Extreme dental anxiety was observed in 11 (3.54%) participants 7 (2.25%) females; 4 (1.29%) males). CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of anxiety among patients visiting for periodontal therapy in this study was found to be higher compared to other study done in similar setting.