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The role of psychological variables in pain report in children undergoing fixed appliance orthodontic treatment

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SpencerTA_1997redux.pdf (19.56Mb)
Date
1997
Author
Spencer, Tamesa Anne
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Abstract
 
 
The present study aimed to 1) examine the relationship between psychological factors (self esteem, child and parental anxiety, locus of control, family environment, expectation of pain, motivation to receive treatment) and pain report in children undergoing fixed appliance orthodontic therapy; 2)identify the specific factors which help to predict pain report; 3) to investigate the use and value of enhancing children's control/coping with pain when they are having fixed appliance orthodontic therapy. This research was considered to be clinically relevant as pain due to the appliance has been found to be a one of the major causes of discontinuation of treatment. This results in a lack of gain for the individual in addition to unnecessary cost to the health service. It was anticipated that knowledge gained from this research may help dentists to target individuals who are at increased risk of suffering more distress or of discontinuing their treatment. Over forty parents and children participated in the study. Questionnaires examining the various psychological factors were given to children and their parents. In addition children were asked to keep a diary of their experience of wearing their brace until they no longer felt any discomfort.
 
Results indicate that psychological factors which may influence the acute dental pain reported in the first few days of wearing the appliance are different to those influencing longer lasting pain.
 
Pain report over the initial few days appeared to be influenced by factors internal to the child (self esteem , locus of control, child trait anxiety and expectation of pain), however as time went on external factors became more important (family environment and parental state and trait anxiety). Three subscales from the Harter Self Esteem Questionnaire were found to account for a substantial amount of the variance in pain report over the first few days of wearing the appliance. The extent to which an individual attributed orthodontic status and treatment to chance also contributed significantly to the variance of pain reported over this time. Parental anxiety and cultural-intellectual orientation of the family as a whole contributed significantly to the variation in how long pain was reported for.
 
Children who were given additional information about ways to cope with pain reported no less pain that children who were not given this information. Results were discussed with reference to possible future research.
 
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1842/26960
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