Evaluation of The Impact of Educational Status On The Anxiety Levels of Patients Undergoing Root Canal Therapy Using Modified Corah Dental Anxiety Scale-A Cross-Sectional Study
Evaluation of The Impact of Educational Status On The Anxiety Levels of Patients Undergoing Root Canal Therapy Using Modified Corah Dental Anxiety Scale-A Cross-Sectional Study
Evaluation of The Impact of Educational Status On The Anxiety Levels of Patients Undergoing Root Canal Therapy Using Modified Corah Dental Anxiety Scale-A Cross-Sectional Study
{dr.merin.mathew,dr.mohammed.sghaireen}@jodent.org
educated subjects reported to have significantly (P < 0.001) low level of anxiety
in comparison to their counterparts.
Conclusion: The level of education seems to influence the anxiety level, with
educated individuals coping better with the anxiety level prior to the RCT.
1 Introduction
Anxiety can be defined as a group of feelings permeated by stress, fearful thoughts
and physical changes, such as sweating or high blood pressure, today anxiety events
are increased also caused by the effects of Covid-19 on the persons[1–7]. Nevertheless,
the influence of social media in modifying the environment needs to be considered
[8]. However, anxiety is considered normal and often healthy unless it is regular and
disproportionate. In later situation, it might be a medical condition and it can lead to
avoidance of non-fearful situation [9]. According to the study conducted by Kirova et al.,
it was found that the highest level of anxiety is between the age group of 25–26 years [10].
This could be explained by the impact of different psychological factors encountered in
this age group [11, 12]. Several researchers have found anxiety being more prevalent
among females. However, this difference among genders has been questioned clinically
[11, 13].
Dental anxiety (DA) reflects a combination of biochemical alterations in the body,
patient’s personal history, memory, and social state that causes a problem for both the
patient and the dentist. Some patients even consider visiting the dentist a source of fear,
phobia and anxiety, which affects the overall oral health to the point of causing also
linked symptoms as orofacial pain and possible Temporomandibualr disoders [14–19].
Nowadays, the treatment modalities in dentistry has expanded including periodontal
therapy, and endodontic treatment such as root canal therapy (RCT). With the advance-
ments in the technology the success rate of these modalities is high and thus has become
an integral part of the comprehensive oral care [20–26]. Although patients may be aware
of endodontic treatment, there awareness may be associated with lack of knowledge
about the details of the procedure, which leads to fear, anxiety and eventually avoidance
of the treatment [27, 28].
Many researchers have found that patient’s education will significantly decrease the
level of anxiety. Sghaireen MG et al., in his study found that patient’s education not only
decreases the level of anxiety but also encourage them before undergoing procedures for
dental implants [29]. Also, Camacho-Alonso F et al., found that the conventional face-
to-face verbal information is the best type of patient’s education prior to the placement
of dental implants[30, 31]. On the other hand, Stangvaltaite-Mouhat L et al., in his study
found that short educational videos will decrease the level of anxiety more than written
description obtained from the Saudi Endodontic Society [32, 33].
Currently, limited number of studies regarding the influence of education on the
anxiety levels of the patients’ undergoing root canal therapy. This prompted the current
study with an aim to assess the levels of DA among patients’ undergoing endodontic
treatment.
600 H. A. Algarni et al.
were at the endodontist office sitting in the waiting room, how would you feel? (3) If you
were about to have your tooth drilled, how would you feel? (4) If you were about to have
local anesthesia, how would you feel? (5) When the endodontist start pulp extirpation,
how would you describe your feeling?
3 Results
The study consisted of a total sample of 177 subjects with 90 (50.8%) and 87 (49.2%)
subjects in non-educated and educated study groups respectively. Majority of subjects in
either group were in their middle age (31–50 years). The non-educated group included
majority of male (50.6%), whereas female subjects were more (63.3%) in the edu-
cated group. Both groups had majority (non-educated 85.1% versus 81.1% educated) of
subjects working in non- medical and paramedical sector (Table 1).
Responses to the questions were also analyzed between the genders. Significantly (P
< 0.05) higher number of male subjects responded to “Quite” response to the questions
1, 2 and 3, in contrast to female. However, higher number of female subjects (P < 0.05)
responded “very worried” when asked question number 4 and 5 (Table 3).
Later the study groups were assessed with the overall anxiety levels. The non-
educated subjects showed a significantly (P < 0.001) higher number of subjects (17.2%)
having an overall high level of anxiety compared to the educated subjects (6.7%). On
comparing among gender, female subjects reported to have significantly (P < 0.001)
higher number of subjects (20%) with high level of anxiety compared to their male
counterparts. On correlation analysis, educational level showed a significantly (P <
0.001) inverse relation with the anxiety, where subjects with higher educational level
display lower levels of anxiety (Table 4).
Other baseline variables such as age, and occupation reported with non-significant
variation in responses. However, significantly higher number of Saudi national subjects
was reported with “worried” behavior compared to non-Saudi (Table 5).
602 H. A. Algarni et al.
4 Discussion
Knowing and understanding the reasons for DA is an important factor in its management
and consequently improving the oral health. DA was negatively correlated to quality of
life with respect to social functioning, vitality and psychological well-being. This finding
indicates that the link between DA and perceived negative quality of life is multifaceted.
In 1954 Shoben EJ et al., reported that DA is an acquired rather than being inherent [35].
Accordingly, it is necessary to inform patients who are undergoing endodontic treatment
with detailed action steps which might be a causative factor for DA. The most common
factors for DA are either from a bad experience, through watching videos or from words
of friends and peers [8, 29, 30, 36].
Different methods were developed to assess and evaluate DA including: Dental
Anxiety Inventory, Kleinknecht’s DFS, Weiner’s Fear Questionnaire, state-trait anxiety
inventory, adolescents’ fear of dental treatment cognitive inventory and corah dental
anxiety scale(CDAS). In this study, the modified CDAS was used to assess the effect of
patient’s education on the level of anxiety as the CDAS is considered as simple, easy and
valid tool [37–39]. The survey contains five questions which test anxiety when patient
is undergoing endodontic treatment. A 5-point-scale answering scheme was devised for
Evaluation of the Impact of Educational Status on the Anxiety Levels 603
Table 3. Descriptive and inferential analysis of responses to various questions among gender
group
each question ranging from no anxiety to severely anxious and measured from 1 to
5, respectively. The level of anxiety is given by the sum of points of scale items. The
maximum score will be 25 representing sever anxiety and the minimum will by 5 points
604 H. A. Algarni et al.
Table 4. Comparative and correlation analysis of overall anxiety level among the study group
and gender
Table 5. Inferential analysis of other independent variables with responses to the Questionnaire
Oral and dental health is a public health issue that is worsened by the increase
in DA levels, especially among children and women. Accordingly, the Saudi society
needs studies at the national level to determine the causes and methods of treating this
phenomenon also thanks to the use of new technologies [48].
Limitations of the study: Although the current study showed promising results, there
are few limitations as well. A multicenter study with a large sample size will make
the generalization of the results to a wide population. The DA from different dental
procedures can be compared.
5 Conclusion
Based on the results of the current study, the educational level of the patient might
influence in reducing the anxiety level before undergoing through a root canal therapy.
Acknowledgments. None.
Data Availability. The data set used in the current study will be made available on request from
Dr. Kumar Chandan Srivastava ([email protected]).
Conflicts of Interest. The author declares that there is no conflict of interest regarding the
publication of this paper.
List of Abbreviations
DA Dental Anxiety
CDAS Corah Dental Anxiety Scale
RCT Root Canal Therapy
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