[Psychologic considerations in the recording of dental anxiety]

The recording procedure is an especially important aspect of the psychologic treatment, since it contributes to the establishment of confidence between the dentist and his patient, and as such is an essential prerequisite to a successful treatment. The article argues that the registration should concern itself with situations and stimuli which have a traumatic character and with the associated learning processes. Furthermore recording of changes in behavior, somatic aspects of anxiety and of the emotional and cognitive aspects of anxiety should be involved. Based on these general requirements, recording of phobias has five main purposes: Firstly, a recording should contribute to a reliable diagnosis or a sufficiently differentiated description of the phobia that one can offer the best possible treatment and prognosis evaluation. Secondly, the recording should ensure that one can evaluate the effects of different types of treatment or the effects of correction of already initiated treatments. Thirdly, recording should contribute to testing the validity of various models of phobia, and by this means attempt to produce new and better hypotheses for the origin of phobias, their extent, treatment and prevention. Fourthly registration should ensure that different recorders and therapists work with as uniform a conception of phobias as possible, (continual calibration). Finally a registration should be of such a nature that it can be incorporated in an epidemiologic study. In addition to the interview method, the article considers the various objective psychologic and physiological instruments available for the registration of components of anxiety and especially dental anxiety. Weaknesses and sources of error in relation to the reliability and validity of these methods are discussed.