Abstract
Dental anxiety and fear sometimes stem from childhood experiences. It is useful to know the stress of the patient during dental treatment to keep such anxiety and fear under control.
The aim of present study was to investigate the influence of stress cognition on the nasal skin temperature.
The subjects of this research were 82 adults (dental school students). They were a more homogeneous group and more adaptable to the experimental environment than children who show various changes in physiological and psychological response,
Procedure of this study
1. The subjects quietly reclined on the dental chair to relax themselves for 5 minutes while listening to music.
2. The music was stopped. (Control stimulus)
3. The subjects quietly reclined for 5 minutes without music.
4. The subjects were given their first verbal stimulus., (Neutral words)
5. The subjects quietly reclined for 5 minutes without music.
6. The subjects were given their second verbal stimulus. (Stressful words)
7. The subjects quietly reclined for 5 minutes without music.
This study was undertaken in 4 phases and with 3 stimuli.
The change indices (coefficient of variation and range) of the temperature changes, the start of the response, the initial speed of the response, the range of the change in response, and the response time were used as physiological indicators. From the graph of the stress and time, which expanded the time axis in the Visual Analogue Scale, the area under the curve and the length of the vertical change were calculated and used as psychological indicators,
The results were obtained as follows:
1. By using the start of the response, the initial speed of the response, and the range of the change of the response and with the nasal skin temperature as the data of the time series, processing of the data is possible.
2. With stress cognition, the nasal skin temperature changed significantly.
3. The start of the change in the nasal skin temperature had no connection with the level of stress.
4. A positive correlation was found between the stress level and the first speed of nasal skin ternperature.
5. A positive correlation was found between the stress level and the first range of the nasal skin temperature.
