Research abstract
British Dental Journal 196, 689 - 694 (2004)
Published online: 12 June 2004 | doi:10.1038/sj.bdj.4811352
Modulation of dental anxiety — the role of past experiences, psychopathologic traits and individual attachment patterns
I Eli1, N Uziel2, R Blumensohn3 & R Baht4
- Dental fear is a complex issue associated with both early experiences in the dental office, as well as with subjects' personal characteristics.
- Subjects' dental anxiety is closely associated with the way they evaluate their dentist's behaviour.
- Dentists' evaluation is closely associated with subjects' individual pattern of attachment (avoidant or ambivalent).
- When dental anxiety develops, the subject's individual attachment pattern (secure, ambivalent or avoidant) may have the final effect of whether anxiety persists throughout life or can be modulated with time.
Abstract
Objective To evaluate factors affecting modulation of dental anxiety among adults.
Methods A total of 183 adult members of a closed communal society (Kibbutz), who have been treated since childhood only by the dentists employed in their community, were investigated concerning their past and present dental anxiety, evaluation of their past and present dentists, psychopathologic symptoms and individual pattern of attachment.
Results The best predictor of subjects' evaluation of their present dental anxiety was the scale of anxiety as recorded by the SCL-90R questionnaire. The best predictors of the decrease in subjects' dental anxiety over time were the evaluation of their past and present dentists and the secure and avoidant patterns of attachment. Patterns of attachment (avoidant and ambivalent) were the best predictors of subjects' evaluation of their present dentist.
Conclusions While psychopathologic traits are involved in subjects' present dental anxiety, pattern of attachment may have a dominant affect as to whether anxiety persists throughout life or can be modulated through a corrective emotional experience.
- Head, Department of Occlusion and Behavioral Sciences, School of Dental Medicine
- Instructor, School of Dental Medicine
- Head, Department of Child Psychiatry, Ness Ziona Hospital, The Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University
- Clinical Psychologist, Department of Occlusion and Behavioral Sciences, School of Dental Medicine, Ness Ziona Hospital, The Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University
Correspondence to: I Eli1
The Maurice and Gabriela Goldschleger School of Dental Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
e-mail: elilana@post.tau.ac.il