Dental anxiety in patients referring to dental clinics differs between women and men in Ahvaz city, Iran

Introduction
Dental anxiety reduces the level of oral health and quality of life. We aimed to assess anxiety in patients referring to dental clinics differs among women and men in Ahvaz city, Iran.

Material and methods
It was a descriptive-analytical study conducted on 397 patients who had referred to dental clinics in Ahvaz city, 2020. The patients were selected using a non-random sampling method. The administered instruments included the Demographic Variables Questionnaire and the Dental Anxiety Inventory. Descriptive statistics were applied to describe the participants’ characteristics using, mean, and standard deviation. Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests was run to assess data distribution. Furthermore, to determine the relationship between variables, independent t-test and one-way analysis of variance were used. Data has entered and analyzed by using SPSS software version. Lever of significant was considered less than 0.05.

Results
Findings of the study showed that the mean and standard deviation of the dental anxiety scores was 87.51 ±30.64 (scores ranged from 36 to 180). Based on the results, 38% of the participants were men (n = 151) and 62% were women (n = 246). The mean age of participants was 41.7 years with a minimum of 18 years. The relationship between anxiety and gender was statistically significant (p < 0.01). The mean scores of anxiety had no significant difference with regard to the variables of age, education, type of employment, ethnicity, or number of referrals (p < 0.05).

Conclusions
The level of dental anxiety was significantly different among the patients considering their gender, so that women tolerated higher levels of anxiety. Authorities are suggested to prioritize their interventions to manage dental anxiety with the priority of women.