THE EFFECT OF MUSIC IN REDUCING PATIENT’S ANXIETY TOWARDS DENTAL TREATMENT

Abstract

It is a universal phenomenon people avoid going to see the dentist because of anxiety and fear. Theory suggests that music has an ability to decrease the level of stress, pain, and anxiety by diverting the patient’s attention from the source of unpleasing stimuli. This study was design to assess the effect of listening to background music and patient’s anxiety level during dental treatment. Sixty patients were randomly divided into a fast beat music group (n=15), slow beat music group (n=15), spiritual music group (n=15) and a control group (n=15). After listening to music for 15 minutes, dental procedures such as anaesthetic injection or drilling sounds were introduced. Patient’s blood pressure and heart rate were recorded before, during and after exposure to music intervention. Result revealed that there were no significant effect of music in reducing the anxiety level among the patients except for post-systolic blood pressure was significantly higher in spiritual music group compared to no music group (p= 0.047). These finding suggest that listening to music and different type of music does not have any effect on patient’s anxiety level in dental setting.