Computerized dental injection fear treatment: a randomized clinical trial

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Dental Medicine
• Health Technology

Background:

• Dental injection phobia affects 25% of adults, causing avoidance of essential dental care.
• Current treatments like systematic desensitization face accessibility barriers due to therapist and dentist limitations.
• A need exists for accessible, effective interventions for dental injection fear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the efficacy of Computer Assisted Relaxation Learning (CARL) in reducing dental injection fear.
• To compare CARL's effectiveness against an informational pamphlet control group.

Main Methods:

• A multicenter, block-randomized, dentist-blind, parallel-group study involving 8 US sites.
• Participants were assigned to either the CARL intervention or an informational pamphlet.
• Self-reported general and injection-specific dental anxiety measures were used for assessment.

Main Results:

• CARL participants showed significantly greater reductions in self-reported dental anxiety (p < .001).
• 35.3% of CARL participants opted for a dental injection post-intervention, compared to 17.6% in the control group.
• The difference in uptake of dental injections between groups was not statistically significant.

Conclusions:

• CARL is an effective self-paced computerized treatment for reducing self-reported dental injection fear.
• While CARL improves anxiety measures, further research is needed to significantly increase dental injection uptake.
• Computerized interventions offer a potential solution to improve access to care for individuals with dental phobias.