Validation of Modified Dental Anxiety Scale for Dental Extraction Procedure (MDAS-DEP)

Abstract

Background: Dental anxiety remains a common problem encountered amongst those who are going to have a dental extraction procedure. Objective: The objective of the current study was to test the validity and reliability of the modified dental anxiety scale for dental extraction procedure (MDAS-DEP). Methods: The current study was conducted by using a cross-sectional survey method on one hundred and thirty-two (69 female; 63 male) participants who were about to go through the dental extraction procedure. A modified version of the MDAS was used in the current study. The questions of the original MDAS were replaced by specific questions about the dental extraction procedure, accompanied by five Likert-type answers. Reliability was measured by referring to the Cronbach's alpha value whilst construct validity was measured by using Pearson's correlation. Results: The analysis of the current study showed a Cronbach's alpha value of 0.822 Whilst the Pearson's correlation analysis revealed that all questions were proven to be valid, with the highest r value gained by question number 5 (r = 0.817, p < 0.01). Conclusion: The current scale was proven to be valid and reliable to be used as a specific scale to measure dental anxiety due to dental extraction.