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Dental fear and anxiety
What are dental fear and dental anxiety ?
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Fear and anxiety are concepts that are difficult to separate from each other in dental treatment conditions and require similar communication and behavioral guidance approaches to control.
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Fear is a learned physiological reaction to immediate threats based on previous negative experiences or narratives, while anxiety is a reaction to potential threats. Since dental examinations and treatments (all kinds of dental treatment are interventions, even surgical interventions) are carried out consciously in a way that the child can observe the equipment and procedures in the dental clinic, dental fear and dental anxiety (anxiety) are intertwined with each other due to instant and potential threats.
How can dental fear and anxiety be controlled?
Dental fear and anxiety are affected by external factors that many dentists cannot control, such as children's age, cognitive development level, temperament, family's socioeconomic level, and past medical intervention experiences. The planned examination, techniques such as x-rays in addition to the examination, and dental treatment procedures (filling, cleaning, extraction, etc.) may cause the child to fail to comply with the procedure and avoid dental treatments to be applied successfully depending on the severity of fear and anxiety.
Most dental treatments can be performed consciously in the clinic with local anesthesia (numbing the tooth by injection) and with the cooperation of the patient when pain control is achieved, but dental fear and anxiety are necessary during dental treatment in child patients, such as keeping the mouth open, cheek-tongue-lip retraction, keeping the working area dry, rotating water. Devices that tighten and create a feeling of vibration may not allow a cooperation to be established that will comply with the commands given by the physician. In these cases, the physician may recommend postponing the treatment with the parent-caregiver, depending on the criticality of the need for dental treatment and its possible course, an intermediate solution that will slow down the progression of the problem, although it is not ideal, or treatment under sedation-general anesthesia, which are advanced behavioral guidance techniques.
Basic communication techniques and behavioral guidance methods are applied to manage dental fear and anxiety at a level that does not hinder communication and compliance during dental treatment.
