• The Korean Journal of Health Service Management
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.141-151
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• 2012

In this study a survey was conducted of a total of 187 insurance sales workers from 10 branches of S Insurance Company located around Korea to gather information on causes of dental fear. Results revealed that the group who had experienced direct dental pain in the past showed higher fear levels than the group without such experience. With respect to indirect dental pain, the group with such experience showed higher fear levels in 'fear of dental appointments' and 'fear of antiseptic smells than the group without such experience. Concerning gender, higher fear levels were observed among females than among males. It was also found that the majority of the respondents seldom go for a regular dental check-up regardless of whether they had experienced direct or indirect pain during dental treatment. In addition, there was positive correlation among all the items in the Dental Fear Survey Scale at a significance level of 0.1%. Twenty of all the DFS items were found to be related to causes of dental fear, meaning that most of the elements involving the dentistry may contribute to the development of dental fear among dentally fearful people.

• Journal of Korean Dental Science
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.22-28
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• 2017

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the dental fear experienced among Korean adolescents and to identify the relevant factors. Materials and Methods: In order to compare the level of dental fear depending on the subjects' previous experience, descriptive statistical analysis was performed. Gender- and grade-dependent evaluation was performed according to the presence of their previous dental visit and dental fear. Subjective oral health status was also investigated. In order to determine the factors affecting dental fear, logistic regression analysis was performed. Result: Among the total of 333 subjects who had experienced dental fear, females were found to experience 1.766 times greater dental fear than males (P=0.007). The worse subjective perception of their oral health was associated with increase in the experience of dental fear by 1.245-fold (P=0.047). Conclusion: The dental fear was likely to be formed during the visit to the dentist's office or through previous experience of dental treatment. Therefore in order to reduce the fear associated with dental treatment in adolescents, establishemnt of a proper environment in the dental clinic and a patient management program are necessitated.

• Journal of Korean society of Dental Hygiene
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1207-1214
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• 2017

Objectives: This study aims to investigate degree of scaling fear (Fear when scaling: FWS, Fear from dental hygienist unbelief: FFDHU, and Fear after scaling: FAS) in college students. Methods: 113 students were recruited for the study in Daegu Health College between March and June of 2017. Frequency table of general characteristics was generated, and then the t-test and ANOVA (scheffes's post hoct) were used to analyze the differences between scaling fear and two or three groups of variables. Results: Mean scores of scaling fear in 113 students were 2.24 (FWS), 1.76 (FFDHU), and 1.76 (FAS). Score 2.48 of female's scaling fear (FWS) was significantly higher than men's 2.02 (p<0.05). Smokers who have smoked less than 3 years (2.56) (FWS) were lower than those who have smoked over 3 years (1.55) (p<0.01). Score of students want the explanation of scaling when scaling (1.94) (FWS) were significantly higher than those who does not (1.59) (p<0.05). Conclusions: The findings of this study showed that there were gender and smoking periods when scaling to effect a score of scaling fear.

• Journal of Dental Anesthesia and Pain Medicine
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.289-295
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• 2017

Background: This study is aimed to evaluate the level of fear and to reduce the overall fear, thereby enabling patients to receive treatment via timely visits. Methods: In a survey conducted by 460 South Korean middle school students, we used 453 data that faithfully responded to the survey. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to investigate the factors influencing subjective oral health and dental fear. The significance level used for statistical significance was ${\alpha}=0.05$. Results: The level of fear was higher for upper grade, female students. The factors affecting dental fear were higher for gingival bleeding and dental pain. Regarding factors for dental fear affecting subjective oral health, lower fear of puncture needle and tooth removal tool resulted in higher subjective oral health. Conclusions: The study found that adolescents had higher fear of dental care when they had gingival bleeding and tooth pain. Gingival bleeding is a symptom of early gingival disease and dental pain is likely due to advanced dental caries. These results suggested that it is necessary to have a program to reduce dental fear and anxiety as well as a program to prevent dental diseases through regular periodic screening and education.

• Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Planning & Design
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.23-32
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• 2020

Recently, women's fear of crime continues to increase in space of everyday. By the way, the fear of crime has the spatial properties as crime. Therefore, The purpose of this study is to evaluate the spatial dependence of fear of crime and to suggest the physical environmental factors influencing fear of crime. For this, a spatial regression analysis using spatial weights was conducted based on the location data of the fear of crime measured through a survey. The results of this study are as follows; First, the fear of crime felt by women in their twenties who are vulnerable to crime has spatial dependence. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the spatial characteristics in analyzing the environmental factors affecting this. Second, in order to reduce the fear of crime, it is necessary to improve the environments of old housing and entertainment facilities. There is also a need for ongoing management. Third, careful consideration is needed in the installation of CCTV and street lights, which are factors influencing the fear of crime. It is necessary to establish a reasonable arrangement standard for CCTV and to analyze the street lighting in detail.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.255-263
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• 2023

Background: This study used text mining techniques to determine public perceptions of dental fear, extracted keywords related to dental fear, identified the connection between the keywords, and categorized and visualized perceptions related to dental fear. Methods: Keywords in texts posted on Internet portal sites (NAVER and Google) between 1 January, 2000, and 31 December, 2022, were collected. The four stages of analysis were used to explore the keywords: frequency analysis, term frequency-inverse document frequency (TF-IDF), centrality analysis and co-occurrence analysis, and convergent correlations. Results: In the top ten keywords based on frequency analysis, the most frequently used keyword was 'treatment,' followed by 'fear,' 'dental implant,' 'conscious sedation,' 'pain,' 'dental fear,' 'comfort,' 'taking medication,' 'experience,' and 'tooth.' In the TF-IDF analysis, the top three keywords were dental implant, conscious sedation, and dental fear. The co-occurrence analysis was used to explore keywords that appear together and showed that 'fear and treatment' and 'treatment and pain' appeared the most frequently. Conclusion: Texts collected via unstructured big data were analyzed to identify general perceptions related to dental fear, and this study is valuable as a source data for understanding public perceptions of dental fear by grouping associated keywords. The results of this study will be helpful to understand dental fear and used as factors affecting oral health in the future.

• Journal of Dental Anesthesia and Pain Medicine
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.361-367
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• 2019

Background: Although studies on dental fear in relation to sex and age have been conducted, there have been few nationwide studies particularly on the youth sector. In addition, no validity and reliability verifications have been implemented for new research groups on the Korean version of the Dental Fear Survey (K-DFS). Therefore, this study aimed to apply the K-DFS developed in a previous study on Korean youth to draw conclusions on dental fear among the youth. Methods: This study used the K-DFS, a Korean translation of Kleinknecht's Dental Fear Survey for elementary school, middle school, and high school students. This study selected 2,161 young people of various ages as participants and increased the validity of the research results by expanding nationwide the scope of the study area. Results: Differences in fear levels according to sex were higher in boys fear behavior scores than in girls' regarding dental treatment (P < 0.05). Students with dental fear had higher scores on items associated with dental treatment and fear of dental stimuli compared with students without dental fear (P < 0.05). Differences were observed among the three groups (P < 0.05). However, the results of logistic regression analysis showed no statistically significant differences for dental visits based on sex, grade, and other subcomponents (P > 0.05). Conclusion: By verifying the validity of the newly developed K-DFS, this research confirmed its utility as a dental fear questionnaire. Therefore, there can be no objection that the grounds for criticism have been established according to conventional wisdom. In the future, however, developing and studying the limits of K-DFS that overcome the factors of dental fear, especially pain, will help reduce dental fear in adolescents.

• Journal of dental hygiene science
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.369-376
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• 2015

The purposes of this study were to assess dental fear and anxiety level of patients attending a dental clinic using the dental fear survey (DFS) scale, to apply interventions chosen by patients for reducing dental fear and anxiety and measure their effects. This study surveyed 34 patients who visited a dental clinic in Seoul about their self-rated health and their experience of dental fear, and measured the level of dental fear using DFS. Trained dental hygienists applied interventions desired by the patients for reducing dental fear and anxiety and, for each intervention, examined the patients' satisfaction (very helpful [5 point]~not helpful at all [1 point]). Collected data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics ver. 21.0 through independent t-test or one-way ANOVA for difference in level of fear according to related characteristics, and through Wilcoxon signed rank test for comparison between before and after the intervention. The subjects' mean level of fear (DFS score) was 44.53, which was an average level, and the level of dental fear was relatively high for stimulus-response (2.72). The level of dental fear was higher in those who had experienced pains or indirect dental fear from dental treatment in the past, and those whose subjectively perceived health state was poor (p<0.05). With regard to the applied dental fear intervention, 'Helpful (3.57)' was the most common answer. Overall satisfaction before and after the application of dental fear intervention was generally high as 4.37 and 4.35, respectively, but it decreased slightly after the intervention. In order to lower the level of dental fear, it is considered effective to survey not only the level of dental fear but also patients' need of dental fear interventions and to apply a suitable intervention. It is also required to educate dental workers and to develop related manuals.

• Korean Journal of Health Education and Promotion
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.47-65
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• 2006

Objectives: This research is to provide the basic data for the improvement on oral health by examining the relationship between the dental fear and the dental service utilization, and to discuss a strategy for dental health in order to lower the level of dental fear. Methods: Data were collected by conducting a structured survey of 1,607 people between the age of 13 and 70 who have experiences in visiting a dental institution. Both univariate and multivariate analyses were employed to analyze the relationship between the number of times dental service and dental fears. Results: The average level of dental fear the respondents reported was $52.16{\pm}15.71$ and 31.5% of the response was at the level of high dental fear. A strong physiologic response during the dental treatment was muscle tension and the stimulations that strongly arouse the dental fear were the anaesthetic needle and the sound of drill. A result of analysis on the relationship between the dental fear and the dental service utilization shows that as the level of dental fear became higher, the number of times for the dental service utilization for the last year had reduced. Also when a patient has an experience of putting off or canceling an appointment due to dental fear and as a physiologic response during the dental treatment became stronger, the result shows a tendency that the number of times for the dental service utilization for the last year had reduced. Conclusions: It has been observed that dental fear is one of the main barrier to use dental service. Therefore, a physio-psychological factor like the dental fear should be included in the task of promotion of dental health, and in analyzing the dental service utilization behavior. A discussion about how to lower dental fear was made with respect to oral health promotion. At individual level, improvement of communication skill by dental service providers should be made with rearrangement of clinic environment into more cozy one.

• Women's Health Nursing
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.358-366
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• 2020

Purpose: This study investigated levels of childbirth fear and related prenatal factors (self-confidence for childbirth, prenatal depression, knowledge about childbirth, and spousal support) among pregnant women in South Korea. Methods: A correlational study design was used to explore levels of childbirth fear and related prenatal factors in 200 pregnant women over 28 weeks of gestation. A self-administered questionnaire was used to measure fear of childbirth and related factors, such as self-confidence for childbirth, prenatal depression, knowledge about childbirth, and spousal support. Results: One-third of the pregnant women were aged 35 years and older. Sixty-one percent of women were nulliparae, but only 26.0% had experienced prenatal education. The mean score for fear of childbirth was 66.99 out of 165. The prevalence of fear of childbirth was 72.0%, and childbirth fear was severe in 26.5% of the participants and moderate in 45.5%. Fear of childbirth was negatively related to self-confidence (r=-.45, p<.001), but positively related to prenatal depression (r=.21, p=.002). Two significant predictors were found to explain the fear of childbirth. Higher self-confidence for childbirth was associated with less severe fear of childbirth (β=-.44, p<.001), while higher prenatal depression was associated with more severe fear of childbirth (β=.13, p=.038). Conclusion: The level of fear of childbirth was higher among pregnant women with lower self-confidence and higher prenatal depression. Reasonable evidence should be provided for implementing prenatal and childbirth classes to reduce pregnant women's depression and to increase their confidence.