Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Dental Phobia Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

[[abstract]]Objective: Dental Phobia, developing with oral medicine as an emerging clinical problem looking for solutions, is regarded as a psychological disorder when dental patients receiving therapy. With empirical research, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy could effectively improve various psychological symptoms. However, research on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Dental Phobia has not been published in Taiwan. For this reason, this study applies systematic reviews and meta-analysis, i.e., statistical integration and analyses, to relevant research and makes comprehensive conclusions to discuss the applications of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to the improvement of Dental Phobia symptoms as well as the factors.Method: English literatures are collected from PubMed, ScienceDirectS-SDOL, and Wiley Online Library home, while those of Chinese ones are searched in Airiti Library. In regard to online data, Google Scholar is searched for the key words of Dental Anxiety, Dental Phobia, and dental fear within 1970-2012.Outcomes: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is defined to help Dental Phobia patients effectively improve Dental Phobia symptoms through non-invasive therapy. The measuring tool is classified into scales and physiological conditions (heart rhythm and pulse) being the indices of effectively improving Dental Phobia symptoms.Conclusions: Dental Phobia is not innate. Patients are afraid of dental treatment because of the conditioned response from previous negative experiences. Dentists therefore have to be able to correctly judge the conditioned experiences of Dental Phobia patients, to present sufficient skills for counter conditioning, and to remove the dental fear of Dental Phobia patients