Pretreatment assessment of anxiety levels among patients undergoing surgical and nonsurgical therapy – A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Aim: The aim of this study is to evaluate the comparison of pretreatment anxiety levels among patients undergoing nonsurgical and surgical periodontal therapy. Materials and Methods: A total of 100 patients were included in the study. In Group A, 50 patients undergoing nonsurgical periodontal therapy for the first time were included, whereas in Group B, 50 patients undergoing surgical periodontal therapy for the first time were included. Matching was done with respect to age and gender for both the groups. Just before the procedure, a questionnaire form containing modified dental anxiety score was used to check anxiety levels. Once the patient had marked the score, total score was calculated. The collected data were tabulated and analyzed statistically using the independent student t-test. Results: There was no significant difference in the pretreatment anxiety levels between both the test groups. Pretreatment anxiety was more among females in both groups compared to males. Conclusion: In this study, there was no statistical difference between both the test groups. However, there are some studies which show that surgical group is less anxious than nonsurgical group; hence, a larger sample size is needed to confirm these findings. Further studies are needed to address the dental anxiety levels in different populations' age wise and gender wise, which will help dental-care providers to better manage their patients.