Anxious patients in need of dental care could soon have their fears allayed by a computer-aided programme. A multi-national research team at King's College London Dental Institute has announced that it has successfully completed the first development stage of its Computer Assisted Relaxation Learning UK (CARL-UK).

Pictured above, Professors Milgrom and Marks

The system offers self-help for dental fear to thousands of people who avoid the dentist or seek dental treatment under sedation or general anaesthesia, costing the General Dental Service of the NHS millions of pounds each year.

CARL-UK, when completed in the next year, is expected to link to FearFighter, an established computer-aided self-help system that the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommends for panic, phobias and anxiety. FearFighter on the internet is being used increasingly and effectively by Primary Care Trusts around the country.

CARL-UK is being developed by a team of dentists and experts in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) headed by Professor Peter Milgrom, Visiting Professor of Pain and Anxiety Control at King's College London Dental Institute and Emeritus Professor Isaac Marks of King's College London Institute of Psychiatry. Professors Milgrom and Marks have between them over 60 years of clinical experience treating fearful patients and are internationally recognised.

Professor Milgrom said, 'In trials in America, CARL-UK greatly lowered barriers to anxious patients seeking dental care. CBT helped people reduce dental fears very successfully at relatively low cost.'

The King's research team includes Dr Carole Boyle, a dentist and Associate Specialist in the Department of Sedation and Special Care Dentistry and Professor Tim Newton, a psychologist in the Department of Oral Health Services Research and Dental Public Health.

Phase I of the program development has been supported, in part, by the Society for Anaesthesia in Dentistry (SAAD). The Dental Institute already does online training for general dental practitioners in dental specialties.