Dental students' treatment of anxious patients

Patients' anxiousness over treatment is an important factor in the utilization, delivery, and outcome of health care. Patient anxiety over dental treatment is widespread and is a source of stress for both patients and dentists. This paper reports a study of how dental students cope with fearful patients they treat during training, and what tactics they believe are effective. Two classes of senior dental students at a state university (n = 127) completed a brief questionnaire that asked them to describe what they had done in a previous encounter with a nervous patient, and to assess the effect of their actions. Students estimated that almost a quarter of their patients were anxious; most believed that they themselves were made nervous by such patients. Virtually all were committed to using talk plus local anesthesia rather than more extensive, drug-oriented methods. The coping repertoire was extensive. Giving reassurance was the most prominent tactic, followed by providing information about the procedure; expressing empathy or identifying patient feelings and the source of fear; and presenting a calm manner. Most students believed their actions had at least some positive, if not a dramatic, effect. In rating the effectiveness of 10 actions a dentist can take to deal with patient anxiety, the large majority of students rated every behavior as being at least somewhat effective. The behaviors rated 'very effective' by half or more of the students included having a calm manner, demonstrating that what the patient says is taken seriously, being friendly, making the patient feel welcome, and giving moral support during the procedure.