Gothenburg at the center of dental anxiety research

A bibliometric study analyzing more than 1,500 scientific articles published between 1991 and 2024 shows that the University of Gothenburg is the most productive single institution internationally in research on dental anxiety and dental phobia. The study shows how the field has grown rapidly while also broadening its focus, from primarily examining how common fear of dental care is to increasingly addressing psychological mechanisms, treatment approaches, and long-term effects on health and quality of life.

Early contributions from Gothenburg

The research environment in Gothenburg has been central to this development. As early as the 1990s, researchers such as Magnus Hakeberg and Ulf Berggren helped establish dental anxiety as a recognized field of scientific research. Their studies demonstrated how prevalent the problem is and how strongly it is linked to avoidance of dental care and poorer oral health. Ulf Berggren was also among the first to systematically develop psychological treatment models for patients with severe dental phobia, through close collaboration between psychologists and dentists.

The new analysis is based on a review of published research and citation patterns in international databases and is published in the scientific journal International Journal of Dentistry.

Research grounded in clinical practice

Ulla Wide, psychologist and professor and subject lead for odontological psychology at the University of Gothenburg, Institute of Odontology:

Image

“It is very rewarding to take responsibility for a research group that has been working on these issues for such a long time. In Gothenburg, we have consistently had close collaboration between odontology and psychology, both in research and in clinical practice, and that has meant that our results have been able to make a real difference for patients in everyday care.”

Today, research in Gothenburg focuses, among other things, on how dental anxiety can be identified earlier, how psychological treatment methods can be used more widely in routine dental care, and how the development of anxiety can be prevented.

Read the bibliometric study Publication Performance and Trends in Dental Anxiety Research: A Comprehensive Bibliometric Analysis here: https://doi.org/10.1155/ijod/5530537