Anxiety Levels in Dental. Students community. La Frontera University. Temuco. Chile.

Studies show that the increase in these levels would be related, with the curricular advance upon being faced to situations of greater complexity, with the age and gender.The objective of this study was to determine anxiety levels frequency: trait and state in dental students. Methodo: study of cross section nested in a cohort stratified by curricular advance, age and gender. Anxiety was assessed by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI).
Sample was constituted by 269 students of first to fifth year that consent to participate and they were present in the activity. Results: of 269 students, 56,9% they correspond to the female sex. Age average 21,9 ± 2,94 D.S. The Anxiety-State scale averages scores for semesters 2º (45.3); 4º (46.4); 6º (48.7); 8º (48.8); 10º; (55,5) (p=0.0002). In scale Anxiety-Trait, the averages were (36.4); (41.5); (43.9); (41.5); (47.0), respectively, (warning of medium (30-44), high levels of anxiety (45 and more). (p=0.0000). According to sex in Anxiety-State scales and Anxiety-Trait, were no significant differences (p>0.05).  According to age in Anxiety/State scale, presents significant association and low correlation (p=0.0122; r=0.1523).  The correlation was no significant between age and scale of Anxiety/Trait, (r=0,1147; p=0.0597). Conclusions: The anxiety appears like a frequent phenomenon in dental students. The levels of anxiety are higher with tendency to increase in proportion to curricular advance. There was no relation between gender and age. The careers of Dentistry should plan educational strategies to handle anxiety considering the risk in the emotional and physical health of the student body.