KNOWLEDGE, AWARENESS AND PREVALENCE OF CACOPHOBIA AMONG DENTAL STUDENTS - A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY

Abstract

Background: Phobia is an excessive and irrational fear reaction. Cacophobia is an irrational fear of ugliness. Cacophobia is of two conditions - fear of things looking ugly and fear of people looking ugly. Visiting a psychologist can help to overcome cacophobia.

Aim: Aim of the study is to analyse the prevalence and knowledge about cacophobia among dental students.

Methods: A survey was conducted in Saveetha Dental College and google forms were used to prepare a questionnaire containing 13 questions was circulated and then the Chi square, pie charts are correlated to bar graphs and of <0.05 was considered statistically signified. Statistics software was made by SPSS Software version 23 and the data was used.

Results: Most of the dental students suffer with people looking ugly and few of them suffer with things looking ugly. Most of the students have tried to overcome this fear while few if them haven’t tried to get over it. Most of them got afraid, some felt anxious while few of them felt an increase in heartbeat on looking ugly.

Conclusion: Cacophobia is the fear of ugliness in things and in person, which is seen on a large scale among the students, future research should explore the possible fear of cacophobia and be reduced.