The present proposed study is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a videotaped behavioral treatment program in reducing anticipatory anxiety and perceived distress during emergency oral surgery involving a tooth extraction. Subjects will be randomly assigned to one of three conditions (45 subjects/condition): a videotaped treatment condition which will consist of a number of behavioral techniques that have been found to be effective in modifying dental fear; a videotaped placebo condition which will control for general attention, expectancy, and suggestion effects; a no-treatment control condition. Pre-and posttreatment assessments will be conducted for the following dependent measures: self-reported anxiety as measured by the Spielberger State Anxiety Subscale, and a recently developed anxiety response interval scale developed by Corah and colleagues; physiological reactivity (heart rate, as well as systolic and diastolic blood pressure); and a global behavioral observational rating scale (evaluated only during the posttreatment assessment). It is hypothesized that the videotaped treatment condition will significantly reduce anticipatory anxiety and perceived distress during the emergency oral surgery, relative to the other two conditions. These results will help determine the clinical utility of brief behavioral intervention techniques that can be made available to large numbers of people in a time- and cost-effective manner.
| Robertson, C; Gatchel, R J; Fowler, C (1991) Effectiveness of a videotaped behavioral intervention in reducing anxiety in emergency oral surgery patients. Behav Med 17:77-85 |
