*3.3. Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S)*

For the present research, for the Fear of COVID-19 scale, Cronbach Alpha was 0.89, which proved a good internal consistency.

The total score was 14.56 ± 6.90 (ranging from 7 to 35). No significant differences were identified considering gender (male/female—*p* = 0.311), marital status (single/in relationship—*p* = 0.613), diagnostic of a chronic disease (yes/no—*p* = 0.066), or setting of work (public/private—*p* = 0.196).

The analysis of data showed positive correlations between FCV-19S score and the practice of some preventive behaviors such as shortening the duration of dental consult (r = 0.488 \*\*, *p* < 0.001). This means that participants who were more fearful of Covid-19 were more likely to engage in preventative behaviors, such as shortening the duration of dental consultations.

Strong correlation was also identified related to total score for fear of infection and dentists' opinions about the fact that dental procedures were a major source of infection (r = 0.415 \*\*, *p* < 0.001), and dentists had an increased risk of infection from the new virus in their patients (r = 0.598 \*\*, *p* < 0.001). Fear of getting the infection from colleagues (r = 0.452 \*\*, *p* < 0.001), fear of infection while taking off the protective suit (r = 0.635 \*\*, *p* < 0.001), and fear of infection since patients cannot wear a mask during a medical treatment (r = 0.370 \*\*, *p* = 0.001) were also found positively correlate with total score for FCV-19S. We must notice here that using self-rated items, we identified a high level of fear of infection from others (dental procedures, colleagues, patients, protective suits) and not the fear of transmitting the infection to others. This aspect will be detailed in the Discussion section.

We found that the number of children influenced the level of fear of infection; the more children the dentists had (r = −0.301 \*\*, *p* = 0.007), the less intense the fear of COVID-19.

A previous study presented that Fear measured with FCV-19S had a bi-factor structure that indicated two dimensions: (1) the first was explained by general fear which reflects cognitive fear or a subjective experience of fear and (2) the second was explained by physical response group factors which indicates somatic fear, the physiological response of the organism [23]. Considering this, the comparative analysis showed that dentists who were university teachers (Mdn1 = 4) scored higher on physical response (Fear of COVID-19 subscale) (z = −2.033, *p* = 0.042) due to having a more intense physical experience, as opposed to those who did not carry out teaching activities (Mdn2 = 3).
