Dental anxiety has not risen in spite of an increase in general anxiety levels in the United States, according to an article in this month's Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA). Previous studies have shown direct links between an increase in general anxiety level and an increase in dental fear.
"The fact that dental anxiety is not rising when dentists are treating increasingly anxious patients is a tribute to advances made in dental technology and patient management skills," wrote investigators from the University of Kentucky's College of Medicine.
"Owing to this strong direct relationship between general anxiety and dental fear, we might expect a rise in the latter to follow an increase in the former," wrote lead author Timothy A. Smith, Ph.D., professor of behavior science. "However, dental anxiety does not seem to follow the trend of increasing general anxiety in the United States."
In the JADA report, the authors reviewed more than 200 articles. They examined and compared 19 studies involving more than 10,000 adults to assess any mean anxiety scores for college students and general adult samples. They used four measures of dental anxiety.
According to the authors, dentistry has changed over the past three decades by adopting lasers, bonding procedures and other less technically threatening methods in treating patients.
"These efforts appear to have had an impact on the problem of dental fear in our society and may be why 63 percent of adults surveyed in 1997 felt that less pain was involved during a dental visit as an adult than it was as a child," they said.
They concluded that in comparison with the rising tide of general anxiety in the United States, this relative reduction in dental anxiety is encouraging.
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