Swedish researchers validate tool to measure fear of dental pain

Background/Objectives: Fear of pain is common in both dental and health care settings and a factor that clinicians have to consider when examining and treating patients. Fear of dental pain has been described as associated with dental anxiety. The aims were to translate the Fear of Dental Pain Questionnaire—short form (s-FDPQ) into Swedish, to add three items, and to analyze the associations between fear of dental pain, dental anxiety and painful experiences of dental treatment. Methods: This cross-sectional study with a translation and validation component of the s-FDPQ, in a dental setting, included 178 adult individuals. Dental anxiety was measured with the Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS), and single questions captured experiences of dental care regarding pain. The analyses included exploratory factor analysis, internal consistency, intraclass correlation (ICC), and regression analysis (GLM). Results: Psychometric analyses revealed a two-factor solution, treatment and examination dimension, and the modified s-FDPQ (ms-FDPQ) had acceptable internal consistency = 0.87 and ICC = 0.93. Validation analyses using fearfulness of painful dental care and dental anxiety showed r = 0.75 and 0.68, respectively. In the GLM model, there were three significant predictors of fear of dental pain: women, dental anxiety and “fear of dental pain makes it more difficult to undergo dental treatment”. Conclusions: The ms-FDPQ shows acceptable validity and reliability as an instrument to measure fear of dental pain concerning several common procedures or treatments in routine dental care. However, the ms-FDPQ needs to be tested in other populations and settings. The results indicate that fear of dental pain is prevalent among adults.