Sixty patients being jaw‐wired for massive obesity were administered the MMPI Panic‐Fear scale as well as self‐ and clinician's ratings of pre‐ and post‐wiring tension and anxiety. Results confirmed the hypotheses that the scale would correlate significantly with patients' subjective feelings of tension and anxiety regarding the procedure, and that defaulters who were unwired or who unwired themselves had higher scale scores. The findings suggest that panic‐fear is involved in defaulting from jaw wiring, and that panic‐fear may have some utility in determining risk factors in jaw wiring as a treatment for ma