Method: Psychology students produced 950 unique dental-related terms. Using an online survey, the 130 most frequently identified words plus 20 words provided by clinical experts were individually rated for dental-association and emotional valence (1-9 bipolar scale). The survey was taken by psychology students and dentally fearful subjects (Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS) score of 15 or higher).
Result: Students (N=55, 53% female, mean MDAS = 14.3, s.d.=4.3) and dentally-fearful individuals (N=46, 80.4% female, mean MDAS = 20.6, s.d.=3.0) completed the survey. Not surprisingly, the most dentally-related words listed by the students were forms of the word dentistry or teeth (e.g., dental, dentist, tooth) and fearful subjects rated these terms more negatively than the students (p's<.01). In fact, 81% (121) of the 150 words were rated more negatively by the dentally fearful subjects compared to students. Importantly, fearful subjects rated 62 of the 150 words as having an average negative emotional valence rating of 6.0 or greater. Examples of the most negatively rated words include: cavity, decay, drill, pain, and extraction.
Conclusion: Dentally fearful individuals rated most dental-related terms more negatively than non-fearful individuals. These words, in addition to non-dental control words, will be used in future studies to determine whether dentally anxious individuals exhibit an attentional bias. Should an attentional bias exist, we will use these stimuli to develop a therapeutic intervention (Cognitive Bias Modification) that trains dentally anxious individuals to direct their attention away from emotionally negative stimuli in order to reduce dental anxiety.