Adapting a Dental Anxiety Measure to Encourage Empathy

Table 2

Results of item-total statistics for the I-MDAS (N = 465).

	Scale mean if item deleted	Scale variance if item deleted	Corrected item-total correlation	Cronbach’s α if item deleted
1. Have you ever received any form of dental care?	17.43	43.56	0.08	0.86
2. Have you had any perceived difficult or adverse experiences with previous dental treatments within the country?	18.08	42.77	0.16	0.86
3. Have you ever had any perceived difficult or adverse experiences with previous dental treatments outside the country?	17.95	42.25	0.22	0.86
4. How do you feel about attending a current dental visit based on your past negative experience?	16.04	32.59	0.74	0.82
5. If you were told a story of someone else’s difficult dental visit, how would you feel at a dental appointment?	17.64	42.49	0.21	0.86
6. If you went to your dentist for TREATMENT TOMORROW, how would you feel?	15.91	30.32	0.83	0.81
7. If you were sitting in the WAITING ROOM (waiting for treatment), how would you feel?	15.87	31.13	0.79	0.81
8. If you were about to have a TOOTH DRILLED, how would you feel?	15.04	31.65	0.75	0.82
9. If you were about to have your TEETH SCALED AND POLISHED, how would you feel?	16.03	32.21	0.70	0.82
10. If you were about to have a LOCAL ANAESTHETIC INJECTION in your gum, above an upper back tooth, how would you feel?	15.23	32.57	0.66	0.83