Dental Anxiety and it's Relation to Serum Cortisol Level Before

Abstract

Background: Dental anxiety is still prevalent, despite advances in treatment methods, and it affects the utilization of health does not only decrease the pain threshold, but actually leads to the perception of painless stimuli as painful. services. Cortisol is an important hormone in the body, secreted by the adrenal glands and involved in many functions.Objectives: To evaluate the relation between the level of serum cortisol and increase anxiety in dental patients before minor oral surgery.Materials and Method: Sixty patients were included in this study were attended Alkatana Specialized Dental Center from October/4/2010 till December/1/2010, their age ranged from (16-54 years) 27 patients were females and 33 were males. They were divided into two groups, 30 of them as controls (they didn't need any dental surgery) who match the other 30 patients study group in age, sex and their general health status but they needed minor oral surgery. Blood samples were collected from all patients between 10-11 Am., and about 5 minutes before surgery to the patients of the study group. Serum cortisol level was measured by using radioimmunoassay analysis.Results: A total of 60 patients were enrolled in this study. Regarding the control group 15 were females and 15 were males while for the study group patients12 were females and 18 were males. Serum cortisol level was significantly different between two groups the mean was13.05 ±6.51 for control patients and 23.62 ±10.12 respectively and the Coefficient correlation (r)between serum cortisol level and pulse rate in both groups were 0.16 (p>0.05) for the control patients and 0.58 (p<0.01) for the study group patients. When serum cortisol concentrations in study group were distributed according to the age of the sample, there was a highly significant positive correlation between these variables (r=0.36, p< 0.05). Also pulse rat in study group was found highly positive association with age (r=0.55, p < 0.01).Conclusions: It is concluded that the study group patients exhibited significantly higher levels of serum cortisol and pulse rate than that of the control group. This deference is suggested to be due to phobia from dental surgical work. As recommendation we suggest giving patient 5 mg of diazepam at the night before the operation.