Management of dental anxiety: a cross-sectional survey in private dental practices in western Switzerland (Romandie)

Jevean, Patrick (2016). Management of dental anxiety: a cross-sectional survey in private dental practices in western Switzerland (Romandie). (Dissertation, Universität Bern, Medizinische Fakultät, Zahnmedizinische Kliniken, Klinik für Parodontologie)

Preview

Text 16jevean_p.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works (CC-BY-NC-ND). Download (400kB) | Preview

Aims: The main aim of the present study was to gain a better understanding of the management of dental anxiety reported by dental practitioners in western Switzerland. Further aims included the assessment of their current strategies to treat dental anxiety and their need for further education.

Materials and Methods: In 2013, an 18-item electronic questionnaire was created and sent to 726 dental practitioners identified from the of the Swiss Dental Association (SSO) database. A printed version of the questionnaire was sent by postal mail to a total of 28 dental practitioners where e-mail addresses were missing. Recipients were invited to reply by e-mail or postal mail, respectively. Up to three follow-up e-mails were sent.

Results: A total of 143 dental practitioners responded to the survey. Following validation, 140 (18.6%) questionnaires were included in the analysis. About four out of five practitioners (79.4%) involved with dental emergency service in their past had at least one occurrence with dental phobic patients. The majority of the respondents stated that both dental anxiety and dental phobia increases stress in the dental practice with frequencies of 90.0% and 88.5%, respectively. Among the 119 respondents using anxiety reduction methods (85.0%), overall 51 (42.9%) reported to use pharmacological methods while the majority (89.9%; n=107) used psychological methods.
Female dentists compared with their male colleagues were using psychological anxiety reduction methods three times more frequently than male dentists reaching borderline statistical significance (OR=3.0, p=0.0591). Out of 140 respondents, only 28 (20.1%) have received education and training in dental anxiety reduction methods. The majority of these (66.4%; n=83) stated that their education and training was inadequate and 55.8% (n=77) requested further education and training in these methods.

Conclusions: Even though both female and male dentists reported to have experienced patients with dental phobia and increased stress levels when treating these patients, female dentists were more frequently using dental psychological anxiety reduction methods. In agreement with the requests from the respondents to this survey it can be concluded that more education and training of dental anxiety reduction methods are needed.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

216 since deposited on 16 Nov 2016
18 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item