Introduction: Dental anxiety could lead to avoidance strategies to ignore dental visits to receive necessary treatment modalities attributing to poor oral and dental health. Older people’s anxiety and thus not referring to dental offices for receiving dental services may inappropriately affect inadequately on community development indicators.The present study assessed the relationship of dental anxiety with oral health status among older people referred to selected dentistry schools of universities of Tehran: 2015-2016

Method: This descriptive – cross sectional was conducted in 2015 with 176 older people selected randomly from clinics' dentistry schools in Tehran city. Sampling method was convenience sampling. Data was collected using demographic and density data and Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS).  Validity and reliability of the instrument were confirmed in previous studies. Data were analyzed through SPSS/22 software using T-Test, ANOVA, Pearson Correlation Coefficient, and Spearman Correlation Coefficient.

Result: Of all the participants, 15.90% had mild, 36.90% moderate and 74.20% severe dental anxiety. The means of DAS score was 14.06±4.65. Mean score of dental anxiety was higher in women than men (p=0.001). Dental anxiety was positively correlated with DMFT (p=0.001) but negatively correlated with age (p=0.0001), education level (p=0.001), and income level (p=0.0001).

Conclusion: Older people‘s dental anxiety have a direct and significant influence with DMFT and periodontal health. So the trait disposition of dental anxiety may be a significant risk factor of poor dental and periodontal status. Older people with such characteristics should be addressed in educational programs in this area.