February 25, 2021 One-fifth of adults in Sweden experience dental anxiety, according to a study conducted by Lisa Svensson, PhD, of the University of Gothenburg. The results were published as her doctoral thesis.
The study included 3,500 adults selected randomly from the general population. Svensson found that 19% of participants had some degree of dental anxiety, fear, or phobia, with 4.7% describing it as severe, 4.5% as moderate, and 9.8% as low. The most highly anxious people often have negative experience of dental care, with a lot of pain involved, Svensson said in a statement released by the university. But the feeling of vulnerability can also be due to previous experience of trauma as assault involving the face and mouth, or sexual abuse.