Page 54 - Demo

Chapter 352Table VII: Pearson’s correlations between expected pain and anxiety and experienced pain and anxiety1 2 3 4 5 6 71 HR ph12 GSR ph1 0.19*3 HR ph2 0.67* 0.23*4 GSR ph2 0.16* 0.56* −0.135 Experienced injection anxiety0.33* 0.03 0.27* 0.136 Pre-injection anxiety0.43* 0.09 0.29* 0.14 0.75*7 Expected injection pain0.20* 0.08 0.12 0.11 0.58* 0.63*8 Experienced injection pain0.20* 0.03 0.16* 0.08 0.61* 0.44* 0.52**P<0.05HR, heart rate; ph1, phase 1; GSR, galvanic skin response; ph2, phase 2. DiscussionIn the present study we examined 163 patients who required third molar extractions. These patients were asked about their expectations regarding anxiety and pain before the injection, and about their experienced anxiety and pain during the injection. We further obtained complementary physiological measurements during the injections. Less than one-third of participants (n=50) rated their experienced pain as 6 or higher on the NRS. Of these 50 patients, 25 were in the placebo group and 25 in the LLLT group. Furthermore, both maxillary and mandibular region data revealed lower mean scores for experienced pain and heart rate (in both phase 1 and phase 2) in the LLLT group compared to the placebo group, although these differences were not statistically significant. The placebo and LLLT groups did not significantly differ with regards to either the subjective or physiological variables in either dental arch region.An earlier study of 66 volunteers recruited among dental students also demonstrated no positive effect of laser pretreatment with regards to reducing pain perception during needle insertion.19 Their data showed that laser pretreatment did not decrease pain perception, but actually increased it. However, the results were skewed and pain perception was much higher in the laser group among female participants. Sattayut20 compared LLLT,