Anxiety and dental fear in a group of parenteral drug addicts.

The aim of the study was to evaluate whether general anxiety and dental anxiety were more common in a group of parenteral drug addicts. 41 drug addicts (mean = 27.4 yr) attending a dental clinic in Aarhus in Denmark participated. A randomly sampled reference group comprising 350 individuals living in Aarhus and with similar age distribution was selected from the Central Person Register. Questionnaires with social and educational data and three self-report rating scales, namely Corah's dental anxiety scale (CDAS) and Spielberger's State-Trait anxiety inventory's two scales (STAI-State and STAI-Trait) were completed by the participants. Response rates were 95.6% and 89.3% for drug addicts and controls, respectively. Median CDAS, STAI-State, and STAI-Trait were 10, 46 and 44 in the addicts which was statistically significantly higher than in the general population. These differences were still present when the addicts were compared to a subsample from the reference group with a better matching of educational and social background factors. Spearman's correlation coefficient between CDAS and STAI-State, CDAS and STAI-Trait, and STAI-State and STAI-Trait were 0.57, 0.49 and 0.50, respectively, which were significant and moderately high correlations. Finally, anxiety levels were similar irrespective of caries experience.