Factors associated with the anxiety of patients during endodontic treatment

Abstract

Introduction: Patient anxiety is a barrier to the beginning and end of dental treatment, especially in the specialty of Endodontics. Objective: To investigate the presence of anxiety among endodontic patients and their associated factors. Materials and methods: This is a cross-sectional, analytical study carried out in the city of Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil. We interviewed 41 patients, and 41 Dental Surgeons (DS) graduate students in Endodontics of a teaching institution. The dependent variable was the anxiety measured by the Beck Anxiety Inventory. The independent variables were socioeconomic conditions, reason for treatment, negative experiences, number of visits and perception of the DS to identify the patient's anxiety. The bivariate analysis was performed using the chi-square test, at the significance level of 5%. Results: Most patients had mild / minimal anxiety. Those who showed moderate/severe anxiety had the characteristics of lower educational level, with no residence of their own, with fathers and mothers over 70 years of age, with negative experience with the DS and had already made the return visit. Of the DS respondents, only 16.7% reported perceiving moderate / severe anxiety in the patients who returned to the consultations. In the analysis, it was observed that there was no significant association of anxiety with the variables investigated (p> 0.05). Conclusion: Endodontic patients presented mild anxiety, this emotional state needs to be better understood in order to guarantee an atraumatic treatment and with lower risks of abandonment.