Background
phobia, anxiety, ’, phobic, caries
DENTAL CARIES, INFLAMMATION, DISEASE, CARIES, DISEASES
Dental phobia has been defined “as a persistent fear of situation disproportional to the actual danger posed to the affected person where many will go to great lengths to avoid it. If the feared object or situation cannot be avoided entirely, the affected person will endure it with marked distress and significant interference in social or occupational activities” [There are multiple contributing reasons to poor oral health which is mostly preventable. These include socioeconomic status (being in routine occupations and with lower educational attainment), psychosocial factors (anxiety and fear) and proximal determinants that include biological (inflammation) [Other oral health-related contributing factors can be poor patient treatment choices [Many phobic people (798 [58.5%]) even with an awareness of their dental needs, will wait to seek care and will only attend with painful (infected) symptomatic teeth that exhibit longstanding untreated dental caries [The minimum intervention oral healthcare (MIOC) is the underlying principle of best clinical practice as it takes a holistic approach to provide personalised oral healthcare. The pathway’s first domain involves identification of patients’ problems (detection, risk/ susceptibility assessment of oral diseases), to enable diagnosis and patient-focused care planning. The 2In this programme (MIOC pathway for people with dental phobia), the level of support for prevention and control of disease in MIOC pathway is suitable for this patient group, in particular for caries element because of its chronic and accumulative nature [The learnt skills to combat dental phobia (for example the learnt relaxation techniques) can be used when patients are exposed to trigger factors (e.g., local anaesthetics). In the Minimal Invasive Dentistry (MID) (3The gained knowledge (e.g., dental phobic people’s experiences of dental services) from previous studies [