A machine learning approach to investigate the role of fear of pain, personal experience, and vicarious learning in dental anxiety

Table 2 Detailed statistical results of the three tested models with the mean importance (Imp), standard deviation (SD), and coefficient (Coeff) values displayed for all variables

Feature	Model 1 - DAQ			Model 2 - SDFQ			Model 3 - MDAS
Feature	Imp	SD	Coeff	Imp	SD	Coeff	Imp	SD	Coeff
Age	0	0	0	0	0	-0.004	0.001	0.001	0.026
Sex^a	0.008	0.002	-0.052	0.011	0.004	-0.067	0.024	0.006	-0.108
Check-up regularity	0.024	0.005	-0.097	0.008	0.003	-0.055	0.014	0.005	-0.083
Serious problem as adult^b	0	0	0	0.002	0.002	-0.026	0.005	0.003	0.051
Serious problem as child^b	0	0	0	0.003	0.002	0.033	0.001	0.001	0.027
Anxiety	0.065	0.009	0.168	0.054	0.009	0.158	0.033	0.007	0.130
Last visit pain & distress	0.235	0.021	0.329	0.246	0.026	0.343	0.208	0.020	0.322
Frightening story^b	0.028	0.005	0.108	0.002	0.001	0.024	0.033	0.007	0.128
Media distress^b	0.003	0.001	0.024	0.002	0.002	0.025	0.002	0.002	0.027
Witnessed treatment^b	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.007	0.003	-0.057
Pain non-injection	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.004	0.003	-0.045
Pain injection	0.274	0.020	0.357	0.056	0.009	0.158	0.136	0.016	0.260
Prolonged treatmen^b	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.003	0.002	-0.042
Model performance	0.503			0.285			0.352

Note: ^a reference group: women; ^b reference group: no
DAQ = Dental Anxiety Question, SDFQ = Short Dental Fear Question, MDAS = Modified Dental Anxiety Scale

ISSN: 1472-6831