Does dental anxiety influence oral health-related quality of life? Observations from a cross-sectional study among adults in Udaipur district, India

We investigated the effect of dental anxiety and dental visiting habits, as well as various socio-demographic variables, on oral health-related quality of life (OHQoL) among subjects aged 15-54 years living in Udaipur district, India. The total sample size was 1235 individuals and a stratified cluster sampling procedure was employed to collect the representative sample. Dental anxiety and oral health-related quality of life were assessed using the Corah Dental anxiety scale and the OHQoL-UK(W) questionnaire, respectively. The majority of the female and older individuals showed higher dental anxiety than their male and younger counterparts. Stepwise linear regression analysis revealed that the best predictors of dental anxiety were, in descending order, occupation, gender and education, which provided a variance of 10.3%. Females were more likely to have poor OHQoL than males. Dental anxiety had a significant influence on OHQoL, people with high dental anxiety being 2.34 times more likely to present poor OHQoL than those having low anxiety. Furthermore, it was found that those who never visited a dentist had an odds ratio of 1.62 for poor OHQoL relative to those who had visited a dentist within the last 12 months. Dental anxiety differed significantly with age and dental visiting practices, and had a significant impact on oral health-related quality of life after controlling for other variables.