Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS)
Rate each item 1 (not anxious) to 5 (extremely anxious). The total runs 5–25; a score of 19 or more flags a highly dentally anxious patient.
Going to the dentist tomorrow — Fairly (3)
Sitting in the waiting room — Very (4)
About to have a tooth drilled — Extremely (5)
Having teeth scaled and polished — Very (4)
About to have a local anaesthetic injection — Extremely (5)
5cut-off 1925
Total: 21 / 25 — highly dentally anxious (at or above cut-off)
Which dental stimuli provoke the most fear?
Mean anxiety-provoking capacity (1–4). Select a stimulus to see where it sits in a graded-exposure hierarchy, from gentlest to most feared.
Local-anaesthetic injection is step 6 of 6 in the fear hierarchy. Graded exposure would introduce it late, once gentler steps are mastered.
The vicious cycle, year by year
Each year, choose to avoid or attend. Avoiding eases fear for now but lets decay advance, which feeds fear back upward. Attending holds decay down and gradually lowers fear.
▬ Fear▬ Oral diseaseYears: 0
Current fear 50, oral disease 20. Make a choice to begin.