[Correlation Between Anxiety, Depression and Pefectionistic Tendencies in Patients Before Orthodontic Treatment]

Purpose: To discuss the relationships between the level of anxiety, depression and perfectionism in dental patients before orthodontic treatment.

Methods: A modified Corah Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS), Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Chinese Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (CFMPS) were used in 170 patients before orthodontic treatment. The data was analyzed by independent sample t test, correlation and multiple regression analysis using SPSS16.0 software package.

Results: 24.71% of the patients had obvious dental anxiety with MDAS scores≥11, there was significant difference in the scores of SAS, SDS between dental anxiety group and non-dental anxiety group (P<0.01), the scores of concern over mistakes (CM), personal standards (PS), doubts about actions (DA) and organization (OR) of dental anxiety patients were of significant difference compared with that in the non-dental anxiety group (P<0.05). Concern over mistakes (CM), personal standards (PS) and doubts about actions (DA) had significant positive correlations with the scores of SAS and SDS (P<0.01); while organization (OR) had negative correlation with the scores of SDS (P<0.05); Regression analysis showed that the scores of concern over mistakes (CM), organization (OR) and age seemed to be a strong predictor of the scores of SAS and SDS.

Conclusions: The level of anxiety and depression of dental anxiety patients before orthodontic treatment is higher than non-dental anxiety group, and it has significant correlation with perfectionistic tendencies, for dental anxiety of patients with early intervention should be combined with different age and perfectionism personality characteristics.