Disproportionate dental anxiety in the over 50s.

Explanations of dental anxiety in terms of either conditioning or personality predispositions alone are not sufficient to account for all individuals presenting with dental anxiety, since they are not a homogenous group. It was hypothesized that individuals, with wide ranging anxiety problems would be more likely to carry dental anxiety into old age. This prediction was supported by a comparison of older dentally anxious individuals with other older individuals who admitted to dental anxiety previously but were no longer dentally anxious. The results were interpreted in terms of Lang's bioinformation model of anxiety.