Smartphone-based exposure treatment for dental phobia: a pilot randomized clinical trial

High levels of dental care-related fear/anxiety, as well as phobia, result in delay or avoidance of dental care, which are associated with poorer oral and overall health. Both pharmacotherapeutic and psychosocial methods are available to treat those with high levels of dental fear/anxiety or phobia, but they are infrequently used and not easily accessed. Smartphones are a potential vehicle for delivering exposure therapy (e.g., a treatment involving systematic encounter with fear-evoking stimuli), but there is a need to test the acceptability of this approach in regard to treatment of high levels of dental anxiety/fear and phobia.

There were 36 patients with high dental anxiety/fear/phobia randomly assigned to either a treatment or a waitlist condition. Participants completed a pre- and two-week post-multimodal assessment, including a dental behavioral avoidance task. The treatment condition included 2 weeks of self-directed exposure delivered via a personal smartphone in the patients' natural environment.

Participants in the treatment condition utilized the smartphone exposure an average of 1.6 times daily (SD = 0.85), and found the self-directed exposure highly acceptable. Moreover, they had lower self-reported anxiety and decreased cardiac reactivity at the postassessment compared with the preassessment; no change in anxiety was found for the control condition from pre- to postassessment.

Highly anxious, fearful, and dental phobic participants utilized smartphone-delivered exposure therapy, and found it to be an acceptable treatment method. Results support the utility and promise for further testing of the personal smartphone in delivering self-directed exposure therapy for high dental fear/anxiety and phobia.