Instruments for measuring anxiety in dental students: a bibliometric analysis
Abstract
Introduction: Mental health, and anxiety in particular, is a critical area of research among dental students. The dimensions and sources of anxiety within this population are diverse. Bibliometric tools offer a quantitative approach to evaluating the current status and development of research on these topics. Objective: To conduct a bibliometric analysis of scientific articles available in PubMed that reference the instruments used to measure anxiety in dental students between 2003 and 2023.
Material and Methods: A unique search strategy was used in PubMed (("Anxiety" [Mesh] AND "Students" [Mesh])) AND (“School of Dentistry" [Mesh] OR "Dentistry" [Mesh]), with MeSH terms and Boolean operators defined in advance. Inclusion criteria applied were articles published in English between 2003 and 2023. Data collection was carried out in November 2023.
Results: Fifty-one articles were identified that met the search criteria. The most commonly used instrument for measuring anxiety was self-developed, accounting for 37.7%. A total of 56.9% of the articles were published in Q2 journals, with the Journal of Dental Education being the one with the largest number of publications. Brazil led in the number of individual studies, representing 15.7% of the sample; however, Europe, as a continent, accounted for 37.8% of the research output.
Conclusions: Anxiety is increasingly becoming an important issue in dental practice. A considerable proportion of studies uses self-developed instruments, with approximately one-third of them lacking validation. Furthermore, there is a significant number of publications in Q2 journals.
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