Stability of Dental Anxiety Scale scores: a longitudinal study of older adults

Abstract With the exception of studies of children, how dental anxiety changes with aging has not been the topic of research. Studies of non-patient populations have been cross-sectional in design and no truly longitudinal data have been reported. In this study, 272 adults aged 50 yr and over completed the Dental Anxiety Scale at baseline and at a 3-yr follow-up. The main finding was that DAS scores showed a high degree of stability in this group of subjects. At baseline the mean DAS score was 7.6 and at follow-up it was 7.4. The proportion classified as having high levels of anxiety declined marginally from 7.0% to 5.4%. While 9.0% of subjects showed changes in DAS scores of 4 or more, it is not certain that this represents real change or a degree of unreliability in the measure. The only subject characteristic associated with change in scores was gender. The mean scores for men decreased while the mean scores for women increased. Overall, the magnitude of these changes was very small. However, for a minority of subjects more substantial changes were observed which may be clinically significant.