Qualitative research paradigm in dental education: An innovative qualitative approach of dental anxiety management

Although qualitative research is becoming more prominent in health care, qualitative data are not widely implemented in medical/dental clinical practice, since clinical teachers are usually unfamiliar with qualitative research and feel unconfident about its reliability. However, this kind of methodology may produce valuable data to a depth that standardized quantitative methods cannot reach and therefore qualitative reports may be useful in order to assess the impact of several medical/dental disorders on psychophysical health of the individuals. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to describe a qualitative research paradigm in dental education, demonstrating how the use of qualitative dental anxiety data may enable general dentists to manage dental anxiety of their patients with greater success. A two-day pilot curriculum on dental anxiety management for general dentists has been developed enabling participants to prevent, handle or alleviate patients' dental anxiety, implementing the findings of a qualitative analysis (instrumental and conceptual use) of individual fears and experiences in dental care of adults with dental anxiety disorders. The patients described strong fears, mostly related to perceived dentist's behavior, to the invasive nature of specific treatments/instruments and to the development of unpredictable and unbearable orofacial pain. This qualitative analysis also provided some newer data; dentists' lack of specific knowledge and skills for preventing and controlling dental anxiety or pain; willingness of phobic parents not to convey anxiety to their children; impact of traumatic dental experiences on anxiety onset, regardless the age of the patient. According to the responses of both patients and dentists, short course evaluation indicated that the precise role of a variety of dental anxiety factors has been better elucidated by means of a qualitative analysis and there was a significant comprehension of specific dental anxiety management guidelines, especially as far as the perceived dentists' behavior is concerned. Some dentists reported that they began to feel more confident about treating a person with dental anxiety and almost all the clinicians intended to develop certain needed personal skills, in order to treat a dental anxious person more properly. An innovative short course on dental anxiety which explores the topic qualitatively in greater depth appeared to help clinicians to better understand the anxiety of their pat