Özet:

The purpose of this study was to compare dental anxiety levels among first-, second-, third-, fourth- and fifth-year dental students. To evaluate the level of dental anxiety against dental interventions, online questionnaires were applied to first year (n=96), second year (n=96), third year (n=109), fourth year (n=107) and fifth year (n=92) dental students. The students' demographic information (age, gender) was also recorded. These questionnaires included the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS). The students whose MDAS score was ≥19 were considered as highly anxious. The statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 24 (IBM SPSS, USA). This study was conducted with a total of 500 students including 220 male and 280 female students. The students with an MDAS score of 19 (having dental anxiety) were 23 people (4.6%) in total. No statistically significant difference was found between the class years of the students in terms of their mean MDAS scores (p: 0.387). When the responses given to the 5 items in MDAS were evaluated, only the responses given to the 1st and 5th questions had statistically significant differences (p<0.01). An inversely proportional situation, such as a decrease in dental anxiety as the class year of students gets more advanced, was not valid for our study. Many previous studies have shown that both education level and dental education may be effective in reducing the level of dental anxiety. However, the results of our study did not support this situation.

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