Assessing the anxious patient

Dental anxiety is a problem for many adults and children and for many patients anxiety acts as a barrier to treatment: avoidance of treatment, irregular attendance or attendance for emergency treatment only being typical ways of dealing with the problem. For the dental team a patient's anxiety poses major management problems, as an anxious patient may require more time for treatment, is very likely to miss appointments and may have raised pain thresholds. A major cause of stress for clinicians is the management of anxiety in their patients.