Anxiety sensitivity as predictor of pain in patients undergoing restorative dental procedures

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Anxiety sensitivity as predictor of pain in patients undergoing restorative dental procedures
Issue online:
03 Mar 2006
Submitted 15 November 2004; accepted 22 July 2005
To cite this article: Ulrich Klages, Simin Kianifard, ˜zlem Ulusoy, Heinrich Wehrbein (2006)
Anxiety sensitivity as predictor of pain in patients undergoing restorative dental procedures
Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology 34 (2), 139Ņ145.
doi:10.1111/j.1600-0528.2006.00265.x
Blackwell Synergy

Ulrich Klages, Simin Kianifard, ˜zlem Ulusoy and Heinrich Wehrbein

Department of Orthodontics, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany

Ulrich Klages, Poliklinik f?r Kieferorthopādie, Klinikum der Johannes Gutenberg-Universitāt, Augustusplatz 2, 55101 Mainz, Germany
Tel./fax: +49(0) 6131 17 5569
e-mail: klages@kieferortho.klinik.uni-mainz.de
Klages U, Kianifard S, Ulusoy ˜, Wehrbein H. Anxiety sensitivity as predictor of pain in patients undergoing restorative dental procedures. Community Dent Oral Epidemiol 2006; 34: 139Ņ45. © Blackwell Munksgaard, 2006

Abstract
Objectives: The personality disposition to anxiety sensitivity refers to beliefs about negative consequences of bodily arousal. The concept has recently been successfully applied in research on chronic pain conditions. The present study investigated whether anxiety sensitivity interacts with dental fear to increase expected and experienced pain during routine dental treatment.

Methods: Subjects were 97 patients undergoing dental procedures of excavation and filling. Anxiety dispositions were measured by the Anxiety Sensitivity Index and the Dental Anxiety Scale. Expected and experienced pain were assessed by affective and sensory verbal descriptor scales and a numerical rating scale measuring pain intensity.

Results: Dentally fearful patients scoring high in anxiety sensitivity both expected and experienced more pain than low scorers did. Significant interactions were found predicting expected affective and intense pain and experienced pain intensity.

Conclusion: The results lend support to the assumption that dentally fearful patients with a disposition to high anxiety sensitivity amplify pain anticipations when exposed to the critical situation. When dentally fearful patients are under treatment, their beliefs about negative consequences of bodily arousal may negatively influence their evaluation of treatment related pain.

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