Evaluation of the Impact of Audio-Visual Aids in Reducing Dental Patients' Fear in Pakistan

Objective: To assess the use of employing visual information to alleviate dental anxiety in individuals undergoing tooth extraction under local Anesthesia.Methodology: An experimental study was done in three dental institutes of Lahore, University Dental Hospital, Sharif Medical and Dental College and Azra Naheed Dental College. This included a sample size of 80 patients who were divided into two groups of 40 each. The first group was the control group which received verbal information before the extraction of teeth under local anesthesia. The second group was the study group and was shown a video clip containing information about the procedure and non-probability consecutive sampling was carried out. Statistical analyses were performed by using SPSS version 25.Results: Pre-operative anxiety scores in both the groups undergoing extractions revealed the patients were relatively anxious before undergoing dental extraction. A pre-operative comparison drawn between the groups showed the data to be statistically insignificant (p-value=0.222). Verbal communication and the use of audio-visual aid for Group 2 resulted in a decrease in anxiety scores. Group 1 showed a mean anxiety score of 5.4 whereas Group 2 showed 28% reduction in anxiety with a mean of 4.6. The data was found to be statistically significant (p-value<0.001). Similarly a postoperative comparison between the two groups revealed drastic decrease in dental distress and anxiety score for the patients in Group 2 with p<0.001 with the results being statistically significant. Pre-operative and post-operative paired sample statistics of these groups showed 55% reduction postoperatively in Group 2 as compared to Group 1 which showed only 27% reduction in anxiety levels.Conclusion: By showing a tooth extraction video to patients before surgery, dentists can reduce the dental anxiety and panic associated with local anesthetic dental extractions.