The Level of Anxiety and Pain Perception of Endodontic Patients

Method: Sixty six endodontic patients filled in two questionnaires, prior to and after the treatment, so did their therapists. First set of questions for patietnts was regarding demographics, the frequency of visits to dentists, the level of anxiety (using Dental Anxiety Scale) and expectation about the level of pain during the subsequent treatment. Before the treatment, dentists estimated the level of patients' anxiety and expected intensity of pain.  

After the treatment, the patients evaluated the level of expirienced pain and dentists' emphaty during the treatment, while dentists reassesed the intensity of patients' pain.

The data were statistically analyzed by t-test for paired samples and Spearmans's rho correlation coefficient at level of significance set at 0.05.

Result: Patients' expectaion of pain intensity was higher than actual pain during the treatment (t-test=3.540, p=0.001). Contrary, there was no difference in pain that dentists expected and their perception of pain during the procedure.

There was a statistically significant correlation between the patients' level of anxiety and recognition of it by dentists (Spearman rho=0.460, p<0.001).

Higher level of anxiety increased the expected intensity of pain (Spearman rho=0.401, p=0.001). Actual intensity of pain was not significantly associated with dental anxiety (Spearman rho=0.080, p=0.524).

There was no significant difference between patients' and dentists' expected pain, as well as real patients' pain and dentists' perception of patients' pain.

Conclusion: Since the level of dental anxiety was associated with an increased intensity of expected pain, a vicious cycle of pain and anxiety may be terminated by giving positive information to the patient before and during endodontic procedures.