Dionne R
Clinical Pharmacology Unit, National Institute of Dental Research, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
Compend Contin Educ Dent. 1998 Sep;19(9):868-70, 872, 874 passim.
"I fear a trip to the dentist more than I fear death" is the response one person gave in a national survey recently cited in USA Today. While clearly representing an extreme, the results of many surveys suggest that fear of dentistry is still prevalent and is a measure of the failure of current therapeutic approaches to reduce pain and anxiety sufficiently to enable people, especially those with special needs, to visit the dentist. Patients who are fearful would likely seek oral health care more regularly if anesthesia and sedation were more readily available. Taking into consideration that the safety of anxiolytic drugs is highly dependent on the drug, dose, and route of administration used, oral premedication should be the sedative technique used by most dentists because it is efficacious, requires little monitoring when appropriate doses are used, and is unlikely to result in serious morbidity.
《今日美国》最近引用的一项全国性调查中，有一人回应称：“比起死亡，我更害怕去看牙医”。虽然这显然代表了一种极端情况，但许多调查结果表明，对牙科治疗的恐惧仍然普遍存在，这也表明当前的治疗方法未能充分减轻疼痛和焦虑，以至于无法让人们，尤其是有特殊需求的人去看牙医。如果麻醉和镇静药物更容易获得，恐惧牙科的患者可能会更定期地寻求口腔保健。考虑到抗焦虑药物的安全性高度依赖于所使用的药物、剂量和给药途径，口服术前用药应该是大多数牙医使用的镇静技术，因为它有效，在使用适当剂量时几乎不需要监测，而且不太可能导致严重的发病率。
