Dental Anxiety In Respect To Psychologic Anxiety In Chinese, Indians And Nepalese Subjects

Introduction: As it has been around three decade only , that china has opened its door to the globalization, there has been a drastic increase in migration of people in and out of china. So, there seems to be a need to have more studies done on comparing Chinese to various other ethnic groups. This could help the doctors understand and provide the best medical and dental treatment not only to their country group but the foreigners in china and Chinese in the foreign land. The purpose of this study was to assess the dental anxiety and psychological anxiety levels of sample multi-ethnic population and understand the correlation if any between the the two.Methods: A sample of male and female university graduate students were taken (n = 310, age 18–22 years, Chinese =94(Chinese male CM =44.Chinese female CF=50), Indian=124 (Indian male IM=64, Indian female IF=60), Nepal=92(Nepal male NM=48, Nepal female =44) with no history of medical or any other illness, participated in the study on a voluntary basis with informed consent .The subjects were made to answer a simple questionnaire on dental anxiety and were also given Spielberger's State Trait Anxiety Inventory for adults to asses the psychological anxiety level. Both the questionnaires were answered simultaneously. Results: Out of 310 students, we received completely filled answers to questionnaire only for n=300 students., Chinese male CM =42.Chinese female CF=50, Indian male IM=62, Indian female IF=58, Nepal male NM=46, Nepal female =42. Among the ethnic group dental anxiety was highest in CM and in NF .Average anxiety was seen in CF and IM. Low dental anxiety was seen in NM and IF .On other hand the results of psychological anxiety (state and trait) for both .CM,CF, NM & NF were found to be same (p>.05), whereas in Indian subjects the state anxiety was slightly more in females than their male counterparts and trait anxiety was vise versa ie) slightly higher in males than in females. However dental anxiety was seen more than the psychological trait.Conclusions: In this study, the dental anxiety seems to be highest in Chinese followed by Indians and then Nepalese .The dental anxiety was more or less same and was independent of sex .Lower income group subjects in all these countries were more dental anxious than the middle and high income groups. The State and Trait anxiety was found equal in all the three nationalities. The state anxiety was more in females than males and trait anxiety was vice versa. Family income had no influence for state anxiety while trait anxiety seemed little high in middle income group subjects . The dental anxiety was seen more than the psychological trait but as the statistical difference was insignificant, we do not find any correlation between the two. There is a need to do more studies in future on this subject using bigger sample groups and find reasons of dental anxiety and psychological anxieties in various ethnic groups. Although the results of this study could not be directly applied to the community at large, it did provide sufficient information to justify the need for future studies on dental anxiety and psychological anxiety in different ethnic groups and also reason for dental anxiety in community.