Journal
SCANDINAVIAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 44, Issue 4, Pages 331-337Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9450.00352
Keywords
adolescents; general self-efficacy; dental anxiety; multiple fears
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This paper examines the extent to which low general self-efficacy and painful dental and medical experiences are related to dental anxiety, multiple fears and to avoidance of dental care. A total of 754 20-year-olds completed a series of questionnaires, including the General Self-efficacy Scale (GSE), Geer Fear Scale (GFS) and Dental Fear Survey (DFS). Females had lower self-efficacy, higher dental anxiety and higher scores on the GFS than males. Multivariate analyses (linear stepwise regression) indicated that painful dental experiences, a high score on the GFS and negative opinions about own dental health explained 37% of the variance in DFS scores. Self-efficacy had no predictive power for dental anxiety, and only dental anxiety had predictive power for dental avoidance behavior. Thirty-eight percent of the total variance in GFS scores was explained by the following variables: being a female, high dental anxiety (DFS), low general self-efficacy (GSE) and low educational level of the mother.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available