Abstract: [Objective] To develop the Chinese version of Stouthard’s Dental Anxiety Inventory (DAI), and to test the psychometric properties so as to evaluate the feasibility of the scale for Chinese population. Methods The English version of DAI was translated into Chinese, back translated and further adjusted according to the cross-cultural adaption of the scales in psychometrics. The Chinese version of DAI was then used to investigate dental anxiety among 940 adult patients and to examine psychometric properties such as reliability and validity. In addition, interrelationship between Corah’s dental Anxiety Scale (DAS) and Stale-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was analyzed.Results The Chinese version of DAI showed the test-retest reliability coefficient of 0.943, the internal consistency coefficient of 0.956, andthe construct validity coefficient of 0.961. Five factors were selected from Factor Analysis, which accounted for 60.541% of the total variance. These five factors were: fear of the treatment methods of particular doctors, anxiety for the treatment process, general dental anxiety, fear of dentists and their comments and horror of the treatment process. The distribution of these five factors was consistent with the theoretical structure assumption. The Chinese version of DAI significantly associated with the score of trait anxiety scale in DAS and STAI(P<0.01). Conclusions The Chinese version of DAI demonstrated the reliability and validity, which proven to be a dental anxiety scale that suitable for the use of Chinese population.