Stress amongst primary dental care patients

• Luis Miguel Rodríguez Vázquez ^[1] ; Emilio Rubiños López ^[2] ; Almudena Varela Centelles ; Ana Isabel Blanco Otero ^[3] ; Flor Varela Otero ^[4] ; Pablo Varela Centelles ^[5]
  1. [1] Centro de Salud de Burela (Lugo)
  2. [2] Centro de Salud de Viveiro (Lugo
  3. [3] Centro de Especialidades Mollabao. (Pontevedra)
  4. [4] Centro de Salud “Beiramar”, Vigo. (Pontevedra)
  5. [5] Centro de Salud “Praza do Ferrol”. (Lugo)

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• Localización: Medicina oral, patología oral y cirugía bucal. Ed. inglesa, ISSN-e 1698-6946, Vol. 13, Nº. 4 (April), 2008
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Aims: to determine the prevalence of dental fear amongst primary dental care units (PDCU) patients and to characterize them according to socio-demographic features. Study design: non-probabilistic sampling on new and consecutive patients demanding exodontia at the Burela, Praza do Ferrol and Viveiro (Lugo) PDCUs from 9 january to 7 march and from 18 june to 21 september 2007. The variables considered were “demographic” (age, gender, address and educational level), “treatment-related” (reason for extraction, root extraction), “attitudes” (accompanied yes/no, spontaneous fear comments yes/no) and “stress” determined using a visual analogue scale (VAS). Results: A total of 804 patients entered the study. The mean VAS value was 3.54±2.63 (range 0 to 10; median 2.95; mode 0). A 96.8% referred some degree of stress, and a 10.1% of the sample scored high values (>7.5 in the scale). These values resulted to be influenced by sex (p=0.000), address (p=0.025) and by the presence of an accompanying person in the room (p=0.008). Logistic regression analysis identifies female gender (OR=3.26; 95%CI: 1.93 , 5.49), urban (OR=2.02 95%CI: 1.04 , 3.91) or rural (OR=2.16;

    95%CI: 1.15 , 4.08) address and the absence of an accompanying person in the room (OR=1.68; 95%CI: 1.05 , 2.70) as predictors for a high level of stress. Conclusion: A 10.1% of the patients experience a high level of stress before tooth extraction. This phenomenon is more common among unaccompanied women from rural or urban areas.