Objectives : The purpose of the study was to investigate the overall research trend and change in dental fear during 9 years(2004-2012) and to identify the major outcomes and future directions to research. Methods : Descriptive literature review was conducted for dental fear in Korea. The research setting should be elementary, middle, high schools and adults. Results : In this study, the literature review of the most used tools to measure fear was that DFS. The most commonly used instrument was Dental Fear Survey(DFS) in the literature review. The number of dacayed tooth was proportional to subjective fear and anxiety. The indirect experience of dental pain was heard from family and friends. So the fear caused the patients to have negative bias toward dental treatment. The negative reliability towards the dentist increased the dental fear to the patients. Conclusions : Through the literature review, dental hygienists are able to understand the dental fear of the patients.