FEAR THE DENTIST: PSYCHOLOGICAL TREATMENTS OF DENTAL ANXIETY
FEAR THE DENTIST: PSYCHOLOGICAL TREATMENTS OF DENTAL ANXIETY

Summary/Abstract: There is a considerable part of population which fears the dentist and proves to be anxious when speaking about dental treatment. Dental anxiety has a negative impact on people everyday life, being related with dental-avoidance behavior, negative memories and bad oral condition. All these elements affect directly, emotionally and financially, both patients and dentists. Most of the time dentists relay their treatments of anxious patients on pharmacological procedures which prove not to be so effective. Another possible strategy could be to use psychological treatments for managing dental anxious patients which prove to be quite unknown in dentistry, but could greatly improve their condition. Using Norman Corah`s Dental Anxiety scale in an online survey with 308 peoples, we measure the respondents’ degree of dental anxiety and if is a good predictor of dental-avoidance behavior and reported level of pain when talking about dental interventions. The findings confirm that dental level of anxiety influence the amount of pain reported by the respondents, but there are no significant relations between this predictor and dental-avoidance behavior. Another aspect is the answers of the respondents regarding their projections about the ideal dentist and dental office, projections which could be part of a new dental anxiety-architecture.

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