Patients with a fear of visiting the dentist are to receive help from a newly launched service. The Health Psychology Service for adults with dental anxiety was launched at King's College, London, earlier this month.

The service offers different ways of helping people who are anxious about visiting the dentist or having dental treatment. Psychologists will work with the patients to identify priorities for changing how they feel about attending the dentist. Many patients want help with feeling less anxious about going into the dental surgery and being able to receive a dental injection, having dental treatment and taking children to the dentist.

According to Professor Tim Newton, Professor of Psychology as Applied to Dentistry at King's College London Dental Institute, who will be leading the new service, there were two main reasons for its introduction.

He commented, 'We wanted to work with the existing sedation and general anaesthesia service to provide a complementary approach for individuals who were willing to work with psychologists to overcome their fears without using sedation or general anaesthetic.' He explained that a survey conducted of patients in the Department of Sedation and Special Care Dentistry showed that some would like to try a psychological approach.

For those with dental anxiety, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) will be used to help overcome their fear and enable them to attend surgery. In CBT, the psychologist helps patients to identify problems and search for solutions. It helps patients to link thinking patterns, beliefs, emotions and behaviour. Patients will be given self-help assignments, for example practising relaxation skills or learning about dental equipment.

'There is a lot of research evidence that the principles of CBT are effective in reducing dental fear, as summarised in the systematic review Dental fear in adults: a meta-analysis of behavioural interventions [Community Dent Oral Epidemiol 2004; 32: 250–264]. We are working with Peter Milgrom from the University of Washington in Seattle, and Emeritus Professor Isaac Marks from the King's College London Institute of Psychiatry to develop computerised CBT. The traditional therapist-led CBT will be a control group for demonstrating the effectiveness of the new computerised version,' Professor Newton said.

The preliminary findings of the successful use of the technique in patients with fear of injections were recently presented at the annual conference of the Society for the Advancement of Anaesthesia in Dentistry. Dr Newton anticipates that in the first year the service will be able to see around 60 patients, with a view to expanding the service once its efficacy has been demonstrated.