HIGH PREVALENCE OF DENTAL ANXIETY IN SOCIETY

HIGH PREVALENCE OF DENTAL ANXIETY IN SOCIETY

Introduction

Anxieties towards the dental procedures are common difficulties that are faced by dental patients globally. And as a result, most of the dental patients tend to shy away from visiting healthcare centers and clinics for consultations when under less severe dental conditions in fear of what they may have to go through in those clinics, a condition which has been affecting both children and adults as well. With time, the dental health conditions initially considered less severe escalate into major dental problems which cannot be totally controlled or very costly to treat. With a keen look on how this problem gradually proceeds up to the state of being uncontrollable, it’s without any reasonable doubt that the cause is anxiety and controlling it would as well control dental health problems. Managing dental anxiety would imply that dental problems would be noticed early enough and be controlled before they can escalate into severe and uncontrollable states.

Relevance

As a result of dental anxiety, many patients with dental problems which could have been controlled earlier on while in their probation stages with ease proceed into levels of being uncontrollable, levels which require more efforts by dentists and costs high on the patient side. This problem can, however, be solved by approaching it from the cause point of view, and that’s by dealing with dental anxiety which is the cause of major dental problems. If dental anxiety is dealt with, patients with dental problems will have the courage to visit dental clinics wherever they perceive dental problems however much less severe they are, and through such an approach, such problems will be treated at their early stages before they can amplify to uncontrollable levels. As such, this is not only beneficial to the patients who could have incurred high costs but also to the dentists who will have undergone difficult situations in an attempt to control the problems.

In most incidences, dentists have been blamed for being unqualified due to their common advice on patients with dental problems to remove the affected tooth. However, in most cases those dentists are usually right on their advice since the condition of the tooth is usually beyond other control measures like filling (Assunção, Losso, Andreatini & Menezes, 2013). When the patients are interrogated to reveal when the condition started, they all quote two to three years ago. Again, they always state that it started as mere toothache after taking some hard foods and because of fearing to undergo the painful procedures they usually hear from friends or rather have experienced before, they choose just to take the basic dental hygiene like brushing their teeth twice a day hoping that the condition will get back to normal which however ends up becoming worse eventually. Being enlightened on the dental anxiety as the cause of major dental problems will enable the dentists to find a way of controlling the anxiety which will in turn control dental problems.

As far as healthcare is concerned, prevention has always been considered to be better than cure. In dental problems perspective, dealing with dental anxiety is like prevention since it’s through it that minor dental problems escalate to uncontrollable and severe levels which ultimately give dentists hard times to deal with while digging deep into the pockets of the patients (Gaffar, Alagl & Al-Ansari, 2014). Therefore, this topic is equally important to the dentists as it is to the patients as it will help fight dental problems which have been increasing and causing more harm to the health of the victims. Through this topic, professionals get to know the cause of what they have been experiencing as far as dental healthcare is concerned while the patients on the other side will get to know the reasons behind the suffering. As a result, a way of controlling dental anxiety can be sought and help deal with dental health problems.

PICO Analysis

Patient/Population

A systematic review obtained its data from general public with an aim of understanding the root cause of dental health problems which have been currently escalating at an alarming rate. The four research works scrutinized indicated that the reason behind the trend was the neglecting to visit dental clinics at the early stages of the problems out of fear of what they might go through in those clinics. This is a situation which has been affecting both children and adults. For instance, an article by Hawamdeh and Awad ” Dental anxiety: Prevalence and associated factors” whose aim was to estimate the prevalence of dental based anxiety as well as examining the socio-demographic links among different people indicated that a large number of dental patients shy away from visiting dental checkups out of the anxiety of the anticipated pain to be encountered. Because of that, most of them tend to stay with dental problems until it’s too late to be controlled (Hawamdeh & Awad, 2013).

From the four research articles, dental patients have been associated with the fear of dental procedures thy either hear from people or have experienced before. This makes them keep dental problems and not visiting dental clinics while at the initial stages until they cannot be easily controlled.

Intervention or Exposure used in the Research

As it has been the case with inclusion criteria, the four articles scrutinized in this paper utilized various interventions for the test populations. The interventions were basically directed on behavior perspective. For that case, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and behavioral therapy (BT) were considered as the main interventions to counter the problem of dental anxiety. Through either of the two, the self -destructive and unhealthy behavior of dental patients to shy away from visiting dental clinics will be identified and rectified. This would be achieved by first taking dental patients through counseling sessions which helps in chasing fear out of them by assuring them of successful procedures which won’t expose them to unnecessary complications (Wide, Carlson, Westin & Hakeberg, 2013).

Control or Comparison used in the Research

The four articles identified several control measures for their tests. These measures were patient information, sedation and general anesthesia among others. Treating the patients with clear facts before the embarking into the dental treatment procedures was termed as an effective way of doing away with patient fears. This included the assurance of successful process which would not lead to further complications as well as assuring of a pain controlled procedures. General anesthesia was also considered to be a necessary approach where the treatment procedures were expected to be accompanied by some pain moments. This will allow the patients not to perceive such moments which would hinder them from visiting the clinics in future. Closely similar to anesthesia, sedation was also preferred and whereby patients would be administered with sedative drugs to make them sleep as the treatment process take place (Wide, Carlson, Westin & Hakeberg, 2013).

The outcome of the Research

The systematic review showed significant roles in this sector of health. Previously, dental patients could visit dental clinics when their problems became severe. This made it difficulty to control the condition by the dentists as well as costly for the patients themselves. However, from the systematic review, researchers observed that there was a reduced dental anxiety level, dental patients changed their attitude towards dental treatment, and there were improved dental treatments, improved quality of life and complications related to dental health reduced (Wide, Carlson, Westin & Hakeberg, 2013).

Results of Literature

From the above four articles, a conclusion that there was statistical significance as far as prevalence for dental anxiety is concerned is valid. First, despite the four research activities being carried out by different people and also at different places, the results were similar. They all indicated that dental checkups were rare compared to other types of checkups. They all showed that most of the dental patients could take a step toward visiting dental clinics when their conditions went viral. From deep scrutiny of the cause of the trend, the four articles came to a common conclusion that the patients feared the anticipated experiences involved in the dental treatment process.

The sample population across the four research works comprised of children as well as adults, and therefore dental anxiety was not for the children alone but also the adults. The percentage of people who showed dental anxiety in the three research studies as indicated by the Modified Corah’s Dental Anxiety (MDAS) was high to imply that it was a problem which was real among people. Again, from the three research works, the participants revealed that dental anxiety had been the main obstacle to their visit to dental clinics for checkups (Wide, Carlson, Westin & Hakeberg, 2013).

The four research works I incorporated in this paper, I did not encounter any bias because all the aspects which have been known to cause bias in research papers were adequately taken care of. First of all, the sample sizes used in each of the four articles were large enough to provide reliable results. Again, matters to do with health have always been gender sensitive, and that has been a major loophole for most research works. However, in the four articles, both male and female participants were adequately balanced to take care of that.

Conclusion

From the research, it is clear that solving the problem from the base is the best approach ever. The dental health sector has been facing challenges not because there the professionals in the field are unqualified but because the basis of these challenges has not been taken care of. As a result of dental anxiety, dental patients usually delay until their conditions go viral to visit dental clinics for treatment. I would change the approach to clinical dental hygiene to focus on the cause of dental problems which is the dental anxiety because through that it will make it easier to control dental problems. The three research works left no stone unturned because right from the identification of the major concern in the dental health sector, a step by step approach was followed until the cause of the problem was realized, dental anxiety. I would recommend further research on ways of countering dental anxiety.