Patient Management - The Dentist-Patient Relationship
Posted by John Doe at Dental Assistant on February 4, 2012.
Categories: Dental Secrets
Share
Print
Email-
+50
Vote
76 votes
21. How are dental fears learned?
Most commonly dental-related fears are learned directly from a traumatic experience in a dental or medical setting. The experience may be real or perceived by the patient as a threat, but a single event may lead to a lifetime of fear when any element of the traumatic situation is reexperienced. The situation may have occurred many years before, but the intensity of the recalled fear may persist. Associated with the incident is the behavior of the past doctor. Thus, in diffusing learned fear, the behavior of the present doctor is paramount.
Fears also may be learned indirectly as a vicarious experience from family members, friends, or even the media. Cartoons and movies often portray the pain and fear of the dental setting. How many times have dentists seen the negative reaction of patients to the term "root canal," even though they may not have had one?
Past fearful experiences often occur during childhood when perceptions are out of proportion to events, but memories and feelings persist into adulthood with the same distortions. Feelings of helplessness, dependency, and fear of the unknown are coupled with pain and a possible uncaring attitude on the part of the dentist to condition a response of fear when any element of the past event is reexperienced. Indeed, such events may not even be available to conscious awareness.
22. How are the terms generalization and modeling related to the conditioning aspect of dental fears?
Dental fears may be seen as similar to classic Pavlovian conditioning. Such conditioning may result in generalization , by which the effects of the original episode spread to situation with similar elements. For example, the trauma of an injury or the details of an emergency setting, such as sutures or injections may be generalized to the dental setting. Many adults who had tonsillectomies under ether anesthesia may generalize the childhood experience to the dental setting, complaining of difficulty with breathing or airway maintenance, difficulty with gagging, or inability to tolerate oral injections. Modeling is vicarious learning through indirect exposure to traumatic events through parents, siblings, or any other source that affects the patient.
23. Why is understanding the patient's perception of trol of fear and stress?
According to studies, patients perceive the dentist as both the controller of what the patient perceives as dangerous and as the protector from that danger. Thus the dentist's behavior and communications assume increased significance. The patient's ability to tolerate stress and to cope with fears depends on the ability to develop and maintain a high level of trust and confidence in the dentist. To achieve this goal, patients must express all the issues that they perceive as threatening, and the dentist must explain what he or she can do to address patient concerns and protect them from the perceived dangers. This is the purpose of the clinical interview. The result of this exchange should be increased trust and rapport and a subsequent decline in fear and anxiety.
24. How are emotions evolved? What constructs are important to understanding dental fears?
Psychological theories suggest that events and situations are evaluated by using interpretations that are personality-dependent (i.e., based on individual history and experience). Emotions evolve from this history. Positive or negative coping abilities mediate the interpretative process (people who believe that they are capable of dealing with a situation experience a different emotion during the initial event than people with less coping ability). The resulting emotional experience may be influenced by vicarious learning experiences (watching others react to an event), direct learning experiences (having one's own experience with the event), or social persuasion (expressions by others of what the event means).
A person's coping ability, or self-efficacy, in dealing with an appraisal of an event for its threatening content is highly variable, based on the multiplicity of personal life experiences. Belief that one has the ability to cope with a difficult situation reduces the interpretations that an event will be appraised as threatening, and a lower level of anxiety will result. A history of failure to cope with difficult events or the perception that coping is not a personal accomplishment (e.g., reliance in external aids, drugs) often reduces self-efficacy expectations and interpretations of the event result in higher anxiety.
25. How can learned fears be eliminated or unlearned?
Because fears of dental treatment are learned, relearning or unlearning is possible. A comfortable experience without the associated fearful and painful elements may eliminate the conditioned fear response and replace it with an adaptive and more comfortable coping response. The secret is to uncover through the interview process which elements resulted in the maladaptation and subsequent response of fear, to eliminate them from the present dental experience by reinterpreting them for the adult patient, and to create a more caring and protected experience. During the interview the exchange of information and the insight gained by the patient decrease levels of fear, increase rapport, and establish trust in the doctor-patient relationship. The clinician needs only to apply expert operative technique to treat the vast majority of fearful patients.
26. What remarks may be given to a patient before beginning a procedure that the patient perceives as threatening?
Opening comments by the dentist to inform the patient about what to expect during a procedure - e.g., pressure, noise, pain - may reduce the fear of the unknown and the sense of helplessness. Control through knowing is increased with such preparatory communications.
27. How may the dentist further address the issue of loss of control?
A simple instruction that allows patients to signal by raising a hand if they wish to stop or speak returns a sense of control.
28. What is denial? How may it affect a patient's behavior and dental treatment-planning decisions?
Denial is a psychologic term for the defense mechanism that people use to block out the experience of information with which they cannot emotionally cope. They may not be able to accept the reality or consequences of the information or experience with which they will have to cope; therefore, they distort that information or completely avoid the issue. Often the underlying experience of the information is a threat to self-esteem or liable to provoke anxiety. These feelings are often unconsciously expressed by unreasonable requests of treatment.
For the dentist, patients who refuse to accept the reality of their dental disease, such as the hopeless condition of a tooth, may lead to a path of treatment that is doomed to fail. The subsequent disappointment of the patient may involve litigation issues.
29. Define dental phobia.
A phobia is an irrational fear of a situation or object. The reaction to the stimulus is often greatly exaggerated in relation to the reality of the threat. The fears are beyond voluntary control, and avoidance is the primary coping mechanism. Phobias may be so intense that severe physiologic reactions interfere with daily functioning. In the dental setting acute syncopal episodes may result.
Almost all phobias are learned. The process of dealing with true dental phobia may require a long period of individual psychotherapy and adjunctive pharmacologic sedation. However, relearning is possible, and establishing a good doctor-patient relationship is paramount.
30. What strategies may be used with the patient who gags on the slightest provocation?
The gag reflex is a basic physiologic protective mechanism that occurs when the posterior oropharynx is stimulated by a foreign object; normal swallowing does not trigger the reflex. When overlying anxiety is present, especially if anxiety is related to the fear of being unable to breathe, the gag reflex may be exaggerated. A conceptual model is the analogy to being "tickled." Most people can stroke themselves on the sole of the foot or under the arm without a reaction, but when the same stimulus is done by someone else, the usual results are laughter and withdrawal. Hence, if patients can eat properly, put a spoon in their mouth, or suck on their own finger, usually they are considered physiologically normal and may be taught to accept dental treatment and even dentures with appropriate behavioral therapy.
In dealing with such patients, desensitization becomes the process of relearning. A review of the history to discover episodes of impaired or threatened breathing is important. Childhood general anesthesia, near drowning, choking, or asphyxiation may have been the initiating event that created increased anxiety about being touched in the oral cavity. Patients may fear the inability to breathe, and the gag becomes part of their protective coping. Thus, reduction of anxiety is the first step; an initial strategy is to give information that allows patients to understand better their own response.
Instruction in nasal breathing may offer confidence in the ability to maintain a constant and uninterrupted air flow, even with oral manipulation. Eye fixation on a singular object may dissociate and distract the patient's attention away from the oral cavity. This technique may be especially helpful for taking radiographs and for brief oral examinations. For severe gaggers, hypnosis and nitrous oxide may be helpful; others may find use of a rubber dam reassuring. For some patients longer-term behavioral therapy may be necessary.
31. What is meant by the term anxiety? How is it related to fear?
Anxiety is a subjective state commonly defined as an unpleasant feeling of apprehension or impending danger in the presence of a real or perceived stimulus that the person has learned to the response may be grossly exaggerated. Such feelings may be present before the encounter with the feared situation and may linger long after the event. Associated somatic feelings include sweating, tremors, palpations, nausea, difficulty with swallowing, and hyperventilation.
Fear is usually considered an appropriate defensive response to a real or active threat. Unlike anxiety, the response is brief, the danger is external and readily definable, and the unpleasant somatic feelings pass as the danger passes. Fear is the classic "fight-or-flight" response and may serve as an overall protective mechanism by sharpening the senses and the ability to respond to the danger. Whereas the response of fear does not usually rely on unhealthy actions for resolution, the state of anxiety often relies on noncoping and avoidance behaviors to deal with the threat.
Other articles
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
