Highly anxious dental patients report more pain during dental injections

Management of fear and anxiety in the dental clinic: a review

“…While pain is cued by a physiological process it also has a strong cognitive component, and people with dental anxiety can have both exaggerated pain expectancies and pain perceptions. [19][20][21] Clinicians need to be aware that managing patient pain is not the same as managing patients' anxiety and fear. First, the actual act of administering local anaesthesia by intraoral injection is, for many anxious people, one of the most stressful and fearevoking aspects of the dental experience.…”

Fatores determinantes de experiência dolorosa durante atendimento odontológico

“…Previous negative dental experiences seem to determine anxiety 4,5 . A critical aspect is the fact that anxiety may directly interfere with perceived or referred pain with regard to dental treatment 6,[19][20][21][22][23] . Patients submitted to tooth extraction and endodontic treatment with high or low dental anxiety levels were compared as to their pain expectations and awareness with regard to the treatment.…”

“…Similar results were found with regard to dentistry restoration procedures 23 and also among patients coming for emergency tooth extraction 22 . In a study evaluating local anesthesia, highly anxious patients have reported higher intensity and longer duration of pain when receiving anesthetic injection, as compared to less anxious patients 21 .…”

“…Other situations also mentioned by the literature as inducing anxiety are endodontic treatment, caries 21 and periodontal scaling 14 . As to sociodemographic aspects, studies have shown that females are more anxious than males during dental treatment 7,17,24 .…”

Relationship Between Dental Anxiety and Pain Experience During Dental Extractions

“…According to Rhudy and Meagher emotional states highly modulate human pain reactivity [4]. The positive relationship between anxiety and dental treatment pain as proven by several studies [5][6][7][8][9] state that major generators of anxiety are anesthetic injections and minor oral surgeries such as tooth extraction [10,11]. The rationale of this study was to estimate the anxiety and pain levels of patients during extraction and assess the effects of anxiety on pain experienced during dental extractions done in our college.…”