Journal of Dental Medicine

Background and Aim: Oral health is a sign of overall health. Sometimes fear of dental office deprives  patients from receiving proper care. This problem decreases the self-esteem of dentists and can also reduce health indices. Understanding anxiety factors may help solve this problem. The purpose of this study was to assess anxiety in patients undergoing treatment in dental offices in the city of Hamedan.

Materials and Methods: In this analytic cross sectional study patients above 9 years old and referred to general dental offices in Hamedan were randomly selected and surveyed with questionnaires in two stages. The first questionnaire included 17 standard items based on Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS) and screened anxious patients. Then 400 anxious patients were evaluated with a questionnaire of 64 items based on Corah scale. Data were analyzed by SPSS 13 with multivariate analysis of variance. P<0.05 was considered as the level of significance.

Results: Factors related to dental office environment with 31.1%, those related to personal imaginations with 19.4% and factor concerning office management and dental treatment each with 19.1% frequency showed to be most related to anxiety in patients. Improper rest-rooms (46.3%), blood stains in the environment (44.5%) and dirty dentist's gowns (43.8%) were reported to be the most prominent environmental factors. Among the factors originated from personal imaginations, the risk of disease transmission was accounted for the most justifiable source of anxiety (67.3%). Regarding factors concerning office management, dentist's nervous behavior (47.8%) and his carelessness to the patient (46.8%) were considered as the most significant anxiety sources. Extraction, injection and root canal therapy (48.3%, 44.5%, 44.3%) were the treatment related factors of higher importance respectively. Previous painful treatment experience (47.3%) and poor oral hygiene of the dentist (34.5%) were reported to be among the other justifiable anxiety sources. In all mentioned situations, variations in anxiety factors were significantly higher in women.

Conclusion: This study showed that the main cause of anxiety in patients undergoing treatment in dental offices in Hamedan is their personal imagination which is by far more obvious in women than men.

  Background and Aims: Application of fluoride products is known as one of the most successful interventions to prevent dental caries. This study aimed to compare the costs of in-office fluoride therapy versus salt fluoridation in Iranian population.

  Materials and Methods: In this study, the costs relating to the use of in-office fluoride therapy were analyzed using Activity Based Costing during 2011 from two perspectives. From the perspective of service provider, direct medical costs and indirect costs and from the view of service recipient, three parts: direct medical and non-medical costs and indirect costs, were considered. Costing for public consumption of salt fluoridation was estimated based on salt processing costs, including purchase, installation, monitoring, maintenance and repair of machinery, equipment, personnel expenses and cost of raw materials, used in this study.

  Results: Costs relating to performing a single in-office fluoride therapy was estimated to be 245,032 Rials from the perspective of service providers, and 239,600 Rials from the patient view. Estimated total cost to produce fluoridated salt for a unit of 10 million populations, was calculated to be 35 billion and 940 million Rials or 3, 594 Rials per person per year.

  Conclusion: It was concluded that per-capita costs of community based salt fluoridation was far less than in-office fluoride therapy. Salt fluoridation could be advised to be an affordable way to prevent dental caries in Iranian population.