Dental Fear, Anxiety, and Phobia
Eli Ilana in Oral Psychophysiology, 2020
It is clear that in the dental situation fear and anxiety are practically indistinguishable. The patient is confronted with both “real” and “imagined” threats (see Chapter 2) and reacts with different degrees of apprehension. Usually, the term “dental fear” is used to describe moderate apprehension which causes tension before and during treatment, but enables the patient to receive dental care. Dental anxiety describes a more profound apprehension which actually interferes with routine treatment and requires special attention. The term “dental phobia” is typically used to refer to patients whose anxiety is so great that it leads to total avoidance of dental care, including practical oral neglect. In the present text the terms “dental fear” and “dental anxiety” will be used interchangeably.
Pharmacological Treatment of Anxiety Disorders Across the Lifespan
Stephen M. Stahl, Bret A. Moore in Anxiety Disorders: A Guide for Integrating Psychopharmacology and Psychotherapy, 2013
For non-PTSD and non-OCD anxiety disorders in preschoolers, behavioral therapy techniques and cognitive therapies are valuable (Hirshfeld-Becker, Micco, Mazursky, Bruett, & Henin, 2011). Treatment is continued for at least 3 months before considering medication. Parental psychiatric assessment may be valuable and necessary. For non-PTSD and non-OCD anxiety disorders in preschoolers, the entire pharmacological literature comprises only a handful of case reports. Fluoxetine may be the first choice for pharmacological treatment of preschool anxiety, but this is based only on empirical evidence. A discontinuation trial after 6–9 months of therapy has been recommended. Benzodiazepines are not recommended, because of possible cognitive impairments and subsequent learning difficulties. The only exception to this might be for ultra-short-term treatment of dental anxiety.
Psychological approaches to understanding people
Dominic Upton in Introducing Psychology for Nurses and Healthcare Professionals, 2013
Bandura’s SLT explores how individuals learn from observing and imitating others around them; it also provides a cognitive explanation of why phobias run in families. For example, Ost and Hugdahl (1985) report that 12 per cent of adults with a dental phobia can trace their fear back to a vicarious experience in their past (a figure confirmed by Coelho and Purkis, 2009). Further research has demonstrated the effects of social learning in the acquisition of dental anxiety in children. Townsend et al. (2000) found that mothers of anxious children were significantly more anxious than mothers of non-anxious children, suggesting that children are vicariously developing dental anxiety through observing the behaviour of their parents.
Dental clinicians recognizing signs of dental anxiety: a grounded theory study
Published in Acta Odontologica Scandinavica, 2023
Markus Höglund, Inger Wårdh, Shervin Shahnavaz, Carina Berterö
Dental anxiety is associated with psychological, social and economic suffering for the patient [1–3]. It is also associated with avoidance of dental care, or irregular dental attendance, usually motivated by acute pain [4]. The tendency among dentally anxious patients to avoid regular and necessary dental treatment and check-ups leads to poor oral health because they have more untreated decay and fewer restored/filled teeth [4,5]. When dentally anxious patients seek dental treatment, they experience more pain than other patients due to their dental anxiety [6]. Among anxieties, fears, and phobias, those related to dental care are some of the most commonly reported [7]. One in five people in Sweden suffer from some degree of dental anxiety [8], and as many as one in 30 going for an annual check‐up is highly dentally anxious [9]. The level of dental anxiety ranges on a continuous scale from none to extreme, and the most severe form of dental anxiety can be diagnosed as a specific phobia [10]. The terms ‘dental anxiety’ and ‘dental fear’ are often used interchangeably. According to the Glossary of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition [10], anxiety is ‘the apprehensive anticipation of future danger’ and fear is ‘an emotional response to perceived imminent threat’. The MeSH term ‘dental anxiety’ is used more frequently in modern literature and will be used in this paper to describe both anxiety and fear related to dental care.
Evaluation of the Jönköping dental fear coping model: a patient perspective
Published in Acta Odontologica Scandinavica, 2019
Carl-Otto Brahm, Jesper Lundgren, Sven G. Carlsson, Peter Nilsson, Catharina Hägglin
The concepts of dental anxiety and dental fear are often used interchangeably in the literature, as both express conditions that involve (negative) patient cognition and experiences of dental treatment [8]. In the present study, the concept ‘dental fear’ will be used consistently. An increase in perceived apprehension towards possible or real threats in the dental situation may elicit emotional, cognitive, physiological and behavioural responses in patients exposed to fear-provoking stimuli. Dental fear has been shown in longitudinal studies to increase in younger adults and decrease in middle-aged and older adults [9,10], but for many individuals, dental fear is stable during life [3]. If dental fear persists over a long time, it may lead to severe psychosocial consequences, irregular dental attendance or total avoidance of dental care, as well as impaired oral health among dental patients [11–14].
Patients’ multifaceted views of dental fear in a diagnostic interview
Published in Acta Odontologica Scandinavica, 2021
Pirjo Kurki, Maija Korhonen, Kirsi Honkalampi, Anna Liisa Suominen
Furthermore, dentists may suffer stress from treating dentally anxious patients [7]. Although a patient’s state of anxiety is reduced when dentists have information about this prior to care [8], dentists rarely utilise this possibility [9]. In order to specify a patient’s fears, it is recommended to measure their fear level before dental care by asking them a simple question about dental fear [10,11] or by using validated psychometric measures of dental anxiety [12]. For example, the reliability of the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS) [13] has been verified in studies [14]. The three concepts of fear (= fear, anxiety, phobia) have been defined [15] and considered in the quite new Index of Dental Fear and Anxiety (IDAF-4C+) [16]. The first of the three modules in this index assess the emotional, behavioural, cognitive, and physiological components of the anxiety and fear response with eight items. In addition, the researchers have developed structured interview guides to obtain knowledge about more specific factors related to problem-oriented situations during an appointment [17,18]. When dental fear or anxiety is severe and disturbs a person’s daily life, it can meet the criteria for a specific phobia included in anxiety disorders, according to the criteria of psychiatric disorders, DSM-5 [19].
Related Knowledge Centers
- Adolescence
- Anxiety
- Child
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
- Dentistry
- Likert Scale
- Sedation
- Pediatric Dentistry
- Coping
- Hypnosis