서울지역 대학생 및 장년층이 치과 진료 시 느끼는 불안요인에 관한 연구

A study on Anxiety Factors that College Students and Elderly People Feel during the Dental Treatment, Seoul Area

Objectives: This study is aimed to analyze the influential factors on the fear that college students and elderly people feel during the dental treatment and provide basic data needed to develop a plan which can lead them to have a positive perspective on dentistry. Methods: A questionnaire was distributed to 241 outpatients (39 college students, 202 elderly people) visiting dental clinic of 'K' University Hospital in Seoul from January to April, 2013. It was filled in a self-administered manner and collected right away. Results: factor analysis, three factors were configured when the factors with 1.0 or higher of eigenvalue were extracted using 19 questions through which dental fear and anxiety were measured against college students and elderly people. The questionnaires were classified into three categories: Factor I (stimulus response), Factor II (avoidance of the treatment) and Factor III (physiological response which occurs when a patient feels fear). As a result, it was confirmed that the questionnaire tool is highly feasible. In college students, the responses they felt during the dental treatment in the said three factors were as follows: 52.00% in Factor II, 14.14% in Factor II and 6.99% in Factor III (73.129% in total). In elderly people, on the contrary, they were 52.41% in Factor I, 10.57% in Factor II and 7.98% in Factor III (70.958% in total), lower than the college student group. Conclusions: This study is significant in that it confirmed complex relations between dental fear and related variables against college students and elderly people.