Adult dental anxiety and related dentist beliefs in Danish private practices

The aim of this qualitative study was to understand the kinds of problems that persons with dental anxiety present to private dentists in Denmark as well as dentists' beliefs about dental anxiety phenomena. Characteristics of 53 anxious patients were surveyed from 42 randomly selected private practices (PP) in Århus, Denmark. Dental anxiety (DAS) scores of PP patients before treatment were significantly lower than patients treated at the specialist clinic (acronym 'FoBCeT'). In spite of this, dropouts in PP were much greater than for FoBCeT patients during the same period. Of 20 dentists interviewed in a subsample, 75% had experienced broken appointments as the most characteristic behavior, while 35% judged dental anxiety to be due to the patients' own personality, 40% blamed previous dentists and 10% pointed to a relationship problem between dentists and patients. The dentists expressed confidence about treating anxious patients, but also a need for more education about management skills. A future epidemiological study of dentist beliefs will be based on these findings.