KNOWLEDGE, AWARENESS, AND PREVALENCE OF HERPETOPHOBIA AMONG DENTAL STUDENTS - A QUESTIONNAIRE STUDY

Abstract

Introduction: Phobia is defined as an unrealistic fear of an object, animal, activity or situations. It is a kind of anxiety disorder. People with phobia try to avoid things which trigger their fear and bring panic attacks. Among the fear of animals Herpetophobia is said to be fear of reptiles especially snakes, crocodiles, alligators (etc) .

Materials and methods: A google form was created and 112 students of Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals,Poonamallee,Chennai-77 have answered the google forms. The statistical analysis was done using SPSS software version 23. Also Pearson chi square test was done to assess fear among dental students among the participants p value< 0.05 was considered to be significant.

Results: The google forms were evaluated using SPSS software version 23 and is found that 56 males and 56 females have attended the online survey. In a total student  population 51.79% of students fear seeing reptiles, 33.04% of students do not fear seeing the reptile and 15.18% of students fear seeing reptiles.

Conclusion: The study proved that the majority of the students do not suffer from herpetophobia.