Armfield Jason M, Slade Gary D, Spencer A John
Australian Research Centre for Population Oral Health, School of Dentistry, University of Adelaide, 122 Frome Road, Adelaide, SA, 5000, Australia.
Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2009 Jun;44(6):495-500. doi: 10.1007/s00127-008-0454-6. Epub 2008 Oct 30.
Dental phobia is associated with poorer dental attendance so epidemiological surveys requiring participants to undertake a dental examination may result in an under-representation of participants with high dental fear.
We compared the dental fear distribution of participants and non-participants in an oral examination component of a national epidemiological survey of oral health. Of 12,606 in-scope dentate people aged 15+ who completed a structured computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) survey, 5,505 (43.7%) participated in the oral examination. Dental fear was assessed with a single-item measure in the CATI.
There was a significant difference between the percentages of participants and non-participants who rated themselves as "extremely" afraid, although the absolute difference (1.9%) was small. The association between extreme dental fear and participation was significant (OR = 0.66, 95% CI = 0.56-0.77) in multivariate analyses after controlling for possible confounders. Females with extreme dental fear were also significantly less likely to undertake an oral examination.
Even though people with dental fear and phobia may delay or avoid dental visits, they do not appear to be appreciably under-represented in oral epidemiological surveys.
牙科恐惧症与较低的看牙率相关，因此要求参与者进行牙科检查的流行病学调查可能会导致牙科恐惧程度高的参与者代表性不足。
我们比较了一项全国口腔健康流行病学调查的口腔检查部分中参与者和非参与者的牙科恐惧分布情况。在12606名年龄在15岁及以上、符合条件且有牙齿的人群中，他们完成了一项结构化的计算机辅助电话访谈（CATI）调查，其中5505人（43.7%）参与了口腔检查。在CATI中通过单项测量来评估牙科恐惧。
将自己评为“极度”害怕的参与者和非参与者的百分比之间存在显著差异，尽管绝对差异（1.9%）很小。在控制了可能的混杂因素后，多变量分析中极端牙科恐惧与参与之间的关联显著（OR = 0.66，95%CI = 0.56 - 0.77）。有极端牙科恐惧的女性进行口腔检查的可能性也显著更低。
尽管有牙科恐惧和恐惧症的人可能会推迟或避免看牙，但在口腔流行病学调查中，他们的代表性似乎并没有明显不足。
