Dental fear treatment outcomes for substance use disorder patients

In order to examine the clinical treatment outcome for dental fears, we compared the records of 18 phobics who had co-morbid substance use disorder (SUD) with those of 27 subjects who were phobic without concomitant SUD. Outcomes were determined by calculation of changes in the Dental Fear Survey (DFS) score. Subjects were classified by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R. All subjects received exposure-based behavioral therapy with or without pharmacological adjuncts. All 27 subjects in the non-SUD group and 15 of 18 (83.3%) of subjects in the SUD group improved. Non-SUD subjects improved more than SUD's on the avoidance and specific fear, but not on the physiological upset, dimensions of the DFS.