Dental anxiety, communication and the dental team : responses to fearful patients
Abstract
Dental anxiety often persists through lack of good communication skills. Dental health professionals (DPHs) can use the treatment alliance to prevent dental anxiety from developing. DPHs should assist dentally anxious patients by encouraging them to express their fears early on. The DHP is advised to acknowledge patients’ emotions, spend two to three minutes to learn about specific patient-centered issues and modify the treatment procedures accordingly. We also caution about the ineffectiveness of sedation for treating dental anxiety.
Citation
Freeman , R & Humphris , G M 2019 , ' Dental anxiety, communication and the dental team : responses to fearful patients ' , Journal of the California Dental Association , vol. 47 , no. 8 , pp. 495-500 .
Publication
Journal of the California Dental Association
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1043-2256Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2019 California Dental Association. This work has been made available online by kind permission of the rights holder. Permissions for further reuse of this content should be sought from the rights holder. This is the final published version of the work, which was originally published at https://www.cda.org/member-resources/journal
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