Dental anxiety in adolescents with a history of childhood dental sedation.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether adolescents with a history of childhood dental treatment using sedation had a higher level of self-reported dental anxiety than adolescents without such a history. A group of 287 adolescents were identified who had received dental treatment using an identical sedation regime during childhood (mean age 5.05 +/- 0.16 years). A cover letter and a modified Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS) were mailed to the parents of all subjects. Sixty-one subjects (n = 61, 21 males, 40 females, mean age = 14.79 +/- 0.16 years) (+/- SE) completed and returned the form. Age matched control subjects (n = 38, 18 females, 20 males, mean age = 14.36 +/- 0.06 years) who had no history of sedation or general anesthesia for dental or medical procedures also completed the DAS. Using the Mann-Whitney U test, the DAS score for test subjects (13.49 +/- 0.76) was found to be significantly higher (p < 0.05) than the DAS score for control subjects (10.84 +/- 0.69).