To evaluate the effect of Yoga intervention in reducing dental students’ anxiety prior to and during a periodontic surgical procedure

Dental students experience a lot of stress, which increases when they perform their first surgical procedure. Yoga has been used for centuries in India as an anxiolytic tool for anxiety reduction. To assess the efficacy of yoga in reducing the state of trait anxiety of dental students before their first periodontal surgery performance. A randomized controlled study using a two-way split plot design (pre-post-test) was conducted. One hundred clinical dental students who were ready to perform their first periodontal surgery were selected. Students were randomly assigned to two groups and were given a 60-min session on stress reduction. Group A, the yogic intervention group, were instructed to do yoga and their performances were monitored for a period of one week and Group B, the control group, were given a lecture on stress reduction without any yoga instructions. The investigator, who was unaware of the groups, had taken the state trait anxiety score of the students three times, a) before assigning them to each group, b) prior to the surgical procedure and c) immediately after the performance of the surgery. Statistical analyses of variance (ANOVA) by SPSS V.16 were used. The statistical results showed a significant reduction in the VAS and state trait anxiety of Group A compared to Group B (ANOVA; P< 0.001). This study concludes that yogic breathing has a significant effect on reducing the trait anxiety levels of dental students.