Dental anxiety among the adult residents of Barangay Cambaog, Bustos, Bulacan, Philippines

Background@#Dental anxiety (DA) creates a vicious cycle of dentist avoidance, oral health neglect, increased unmet treatment needs, compromised well-being and quality of life (QoL), which then generates added anxiety. The prevalence of DA among adult Filipinos has not been investigated. @*Objectives@#This study aimed to establish baseline data on dental anxiety among the adult residents of Barangay (Brgy.) Cambaog, Bustos, Bulacan, Philippines. @*Methodology@#Three hundred thirty-six (336) randomly selected adult residents completed a questionnaire that included demographics, frequency of dental visits, self-assessment of their oral health status, the Corah's Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS), and reasons for their DA. @*Results@#The study showed that 11% of the 336 participants had DA, were young adults, affecting twice as many women than men, had lower levels of education, and with a lessening of anxiety with age. Participants with DA were also found to have infrequent dental visits, were symptom-driven, had poorer self-assessed oral health status, and only 13% of the respondents with DA viewed their oral health as healthy. Needles, tooth extraction, pain, previous negative experience, and sound of the drill were some of the triggers that elicited anxiety. @*Conclusion@#DA affects a proportion of the adult residents of Brgy. Cambaog and can be considered a dental public health problem. The use of screening tools like DAS should be considered for the early recognition of patients with DA so that management measures may be taken to enhance the delivery of oral health services.

A qualitative and quantitative study on the abrasivity of five Philippine-brand toothpastes

@#<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Background:</strong> Relative Dentin Abrasivity (RDA), as set by ISO 11609, is a standardized measurement on the abrasiveness of toothpaste. There are no published RDA values for Philippine-brand toothpastes. This study evaluated the degree of abrasion of five Philippine-brand toothpastes.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Objective:</strong> To compare qualitatively and quantitatively the abrasivity of five Philippine-brand toothpastes (Brands X, U, H, HN, G) to two foreign-brand toothpastes Brand C (RDA 68) and Brand P (RDA 150).</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Methods:</strong> Twenty-four bovine dentin samples were brushed with a slurry of each of the toothpaste using a toothbrushing machine. A profilometer, scanning electron microscope and a visual measuring scope were used to determine abrasivity through the before-and-after-brushing surface roughness.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Results:</strong> Ranked based on the difference of the means for surface roughness, before-and-after brushing, in decreasing order of abrasivity are: Brands P, X, U, H, C, HN, and G. Using Dunn's test-post hoc test for Kruskal-Wallis test at p ? 0.05, we showed that the abrasivity of Brands G, H, and HN were not significantly different from Brand C, and Brand X was not significantly different from Brand P. Brand U was significantly less abrasive than Brand P and significantly more abrasive than Brand C.</p><p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Conclusion:</strong> Brands G, H, and HN can be considered as low-abrasive toothpastes, Brand X a high abrasive toothpaste, and with Brand U was unclear as to category. Findings from qualitative data support the quantitative data.</p>