Elsevier

Dental Abstracts

Volume 62, Issue 1, January–February 2017, Pages 54-55
Dental Abstracts

Inquiry
Recall of dental pain and anxiety

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.denabs.2016.09.043Get rights and content

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Background

Patients’ memories of painful dental experiences are likely to influence their development of dental fear, which has the adverse effect of making them avoid seeking dental care. All dental patients tend to predict and recall more pain than they report actually experiencing during the dental procedure. However, patients who have higher levels of dental fear tend to predict and recall even higher pain levels than most patients. Research should also investigate feelings other than anxiety when

Methods

The 157 patients were asked before they underwent an extraction to rate their current dental pain and state anxiety, predict their pain and state anxiety during the extraction, note their depression level, and rate their dental fear. Immediately after the procedure and 1 month later, patients rated their pain and state anxiety during the extraction. Patients were also divided into high and low dental fear groups and depression groups and compared for their rating of pain and state anxiety over

Results

The most important predictors of recalled pain were identified as pain reported during the extraction and recalled state anxiety. Women remembered more anxiety than men. Factors having relationships with recalled anxiety included dental fear, negative affect, preprocedure state anxiety, and predicted state anxiety. Recalled pain was the strongest predictor of recalled anxiety.

Significant interactions were identified for dental fear and depression, dental fear and time, and depression and time.

Discussion

Dental pain and state anxiety had strong abilities to influence memory. Depression affects dental pain and dental fear but not memory. Dental fear predicted recalled anxiety. In addition, more dentally fearful patients predicted and recalled more pain and state anxiety than less fearful individuals.

Clinical Significance

Patients’ recall tends to exaggerate their pain experience, so the dentist should focus on ensuring their memories are of little or no pain. Further study is needed to clarify

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Kyle BN, McNeil DW, Weaver B, et al: Recall of dental pain and anxiety in a cohort of oral surgery patients. J Dent Res 95:629-634, 2016

Reprints available from DW McNeil, West Virginia Univ, PO Box 6040, 53 Campus Dr, Morgantown, WV 26506-6040; e-mail: [email protected]

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