Association between dental fear and eating disorders and Body Mass Index among Finnish university students: a national survey

Abstract

<p><br />Background: Little is known about the association between eating disorders (ED) and dental fear. This study <br />inves- tigated the association between dental fear and EDs through body mass index (BMI), and SCOFF <br />(sick, control, one stone, fat, food) questionnaire among Finnish university students. We hypothesised that dental fear is associated with EDs and BMI.<br /><br />Methods: We used the latest data from the Finnish University Student Health Survey 2016. This <br />survey targeted undergraduate Finnish students (n 10,000) of academic universities and <br />universities of applied sciences. We enquired about e.g. age, gender, height, weight, educational <br />sector and perceived mental well-being. We used the SCOFF questionnaire to assess those at risk for <br />developing EDs. The question ‘Do you feel scared about dental care?’ enquired about dental fear. We <br />used the chi-square test and gender-specific logistic regression to analyse the associations <br />between dental fear, EDs and BMI controlling for age, educational sector and mental well-being.<br /><br />Results: In total, 3110 students participated in the study. Overall 7.2% of the students reported <br />high dental fear and 9.2% scored SCOFF positive; more women than men reported high dental fear <br />(11.2% vs. 3.8%, p< 0.001) and scored positive on SCOFF (14.2% vs. 3.6%, p< 0.001). Gender modified <br />the association between dental fear and EDs and BMI. Among females, when controlling for <br />educational sector and BMI, those with positive SCOFF score were more likely to have high dental <br />fear than those with negative SCOFF score (OR 1.6; CI 1.0–2.4). After adding perceived mental well-being to the gender-specific regression analyses, overweight and obese males, BMI ≥ 25 (OR 2.4; CI 1.3–4.4) and females with poor to moderate mental well-being (OR 2.1; CI 1.4–2.9) were more likely than their counterparts to have high dental fear.<br /><br />Conclusions: Among the Finnish university students BMI in males and problems of mental well-being <br />in females were positively associated with high dental fear. The results of this study support possible common vulnerability factors that dental fear and other psychological disorders may share.<br /><br /><br /></p>