Dental Fear – A Self Fulfilling Prophecy

According to studies, it is estimated that 21% of adults in Australia have dental fear to some extent. Some experience a mild apprehension whenever faced with the prospect of sitting in the dentist’s chair. Meanwhile, 16.1% of the adults referred to above are extremely phobic of any sort of dental procedure. In fact, they fear the dentist so much that they would rather endure tooth pain for years instead of going to a clinic.

Dental fear can be misleading for many people. For phobic patients, the negative images of danger associated with practitioners wearing white coats can cause severe panic that translates to unwillingness to undergo any sort of treatment. However, in most cases, this fear is often ungrounded and even exaggerated. There is usually no sufficient basis in believing that dental procedures will result in unendurable pain. The truth is, even the most basic oral health procedures (such as tooth extraction or dental cleaning) can be performed with no pain or with minimum discomfort for the patient. But despite the many developments in the field of dentistry, a lot of people still hesitate to trust their dentists because they let their fear talk to them instead of sound reasoning.

The problem with dental phobia is that it serves as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Although typical oral health procedures can be done safely by a qualified practitioner, the patient can put himself in danger by reacting with too much fear. For example, being too nervous can cause some patients to have high blood pressure levels, a situation in which any dentist won’t be able to go any further with tooth surgery. In this situation, there was no real danger present except the physical effects of fear that the patient has brought upon himself.

When dealing with extremely fearful patients, dentists often need to worry more about making the patient cooperate than the dental surgery itself. This could potentially cause the dentist to have divided attention because he or she is having a hard time calming the patient. As a general rule, people who have a divided attention increase their likelihood to commit mistakes, and the same is true even for professional teeth doctors. If only the patient cooperated more by trusting the dentist, danger could have been warded off completely.

In the arguments presented above, it is clear that those who are severely apprehensive about dental treatments are very much in danger compared to those who are calm and confident about the situation. Under any circumstances, fear should never be allowed to become a self fulfilling prophecy that eventually leads to untoward clinical incidents. For more information about safe and painless dental treatments, visit http://www.drwalker.com.au