Non-pharmacological methods of fighting dental anxiety

Abstract

Anxiety related to dental prophylactic and therapeutic procedures and experienced by children, adolescents and adults is an important obstacle in the everyday practice of dental professionals. The methods to reduce and/or eliminate dental anxiety and to influence patients’ attitudes may be divided into the non-pharmacological and pharmacological. The presented study analyzes the specialist literature available through Pubmed and Google Scholar databases, examining the papers published during the 10 years prior to this study. The article, discusses non-pharmacological methods of fighting dental anxiety, including basic behavioural as well as alternative methods, such as using VR goggles, music and hypnosis. The authors also report evaluations of the effectiveness of these methods in clinical dental practice, while at the same time stressing that such an assessment is extremely difficult. Most research covers only those patients who report to dental surgeries, which results in excluding subjects who feel too great an anxiety to seek the help of a dentist. Various sources assessing the effectiveness of the various methods are cited. The popularization and more frequent use of the methods for reducing and/or elimination of dental anxiety chosen according to the patient’s age, personality, temperament, and his/her anxiety level is beneficial both for the patient suffering from dental anxiety and for the dentist.