Music, audio-visuals or virtual reality for dental anxiety?

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This review of the effectiveness of relaxing music, audio-visuals (AV), and virtual reality (VR) in reducing dental anxiety associated with tooth extraction included 11 RCTs. The findings suggest that music performed better than VR and AV . However the limited number of studies and variation in anxiety scales, musical and visual interventions used means that the findings should be interpreted cautiously.

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Stress of root canal treatment in patients and dentists

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This review to determine whether root canal treatment causes greater stress than other dental treatments, especially extractions, in patients and providers of dental treatment included 23 studies. The findings suggest that root canal treatment was more psychologically stressful for patients than routine restorative or cleaning procedures however a majority of the included studies (52%) were at high risk of bias.

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