Effect of Trait Anxiety in Women on Oral Health Status and Oral Health Care-Seeking Behavior

Trait anxiety is the tendency of an individual to perceive environmental stimuli such as different events and situations as threatening; it's stable and reflects how an individual generally feels. In 2015, it was estimated that 3.6% of the population lived with anxiety disorders globally, i.e. approximately 264 million people lived with anxiety disorders worldwide of which 31.36 million resided in the Eastern Mediterranean region, that's to say, 10% of the global number of anxiety cases. Moreover, females were more affected than males in a proportion of 4.6% as opposed to 2.6% respectively. The prevalence of anxiety has increased by 14.9% from 2005 to 2015. In addition, in 2017, approximately 42 million new cases were recorded globally. In Egypt, the total number of anxiety cases were more than 3 million in 2015 thus indicating that 4.2% of the total population lived with anxiety. Anxiety may affect the individual's utilization of dental services and predispose to a delay in seeking dental treatment and thus might compromise the overall oral health. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the effect of trait anxiety on the oral health status of women and determine their behavior towards the utilization of dental services. To our knowledge, no previous research has been conducted to assess such relationship in Egypt.