Evaluation of the behavior and health anxiety levels the patients applying to the periodontology clinic during the COVID-19 pandemic

Background: the aim of this study was to examine the general behavioral status of individuals who applied to a periodontology clinic during the covid-19 pandemic to evaluate their health anxiety levels and to compare their anxiety score averages in terms of various factors. methods: this study was carried out using the face-to-face survey method. participants were asked to fill out a demographic data form, a survey form asking about pandemic-related behaviors, and the short health anxiety inventory (shai). the effects of factors such as age, gender, marital status, educational status, working in a health institution, and having had covid-19 disease on health anxiety levels were investigated. the kolmogorov-smirnov test, shapiro-wilk test, independent samples t test, anova, and tukey’s hsd test were used for statistical analysis (p < 0.05). results: a total of 400 volunteer participants were included (252 females and 148 males). anxiety score averages showed a statistically significant difference in terms of gender and education (p = 0.023 and p = 0.001, respectively). accordingly, the females’ mean shai score (17.45 ± 7.053) was found to be higher than the males’ (15.69 ± 8.161). the mean shai scores of primary school graduates (20.86 ± 6.105) were higher than those of high school (15.95 ± 8.197) and university graduates (16.11 ± 6.367). there was no significant difference in terms of marital status, working in a health institution, and being diagnosed with covid-19. also, 48.2% of the participants only used surgical masks. conclusion: most participants declared that their confidence in healthcare workers increased during the epidemic. females and individuals with low educational status had higher health anxiety in this study.