Fear of injections and report of negative dentist behavior among Caucasian American and Taiwanese adults from dental school clinics.

Fear of injections and reports of negative dentist behavior and associations with dental anxiety and avoidance of treatment were explored among 951 adults from dental school clinics in Iowa City, Iowa and Taipei, Taiwan. Use and fear of anesthetic injections and negative dentist behavior were assessed by written questionnaire to test associations with demographics, overall dental anxiety (Dental Anxiety Scale or "DAS") and utilization behaviors. Frequency and logistic regression analyses showed that use of dental anesthetics for routine treatment was much greater overall among caucasian Americans than Taiwanese, as was fear of injections. Taiwanese and Americans with high dental anxiety (DAS 12) had similar high fear of injections, but inspite of similar fears about dental drilling, high anxiety Taiwanese reported using much less local anesthesia for routine treatments than did high anxiety Americans. Report of condescending remarks to patients ("put downs") by dentists was mainly an American phenomenon associated with high dental anxiety. Avoidance of appointment making was high for persons afraid of injections and for Americans reporting negative dentist behavior. Avoidance was highest in subjects with high dental anxiety. That predominant characteristics or etiologies of dental anxiety can differ by cultural differences in dental health care systems, dentist beliefs and/or expectations of patients within those systems was discussed in relation to the literature.

The effects of practice and visual feedback on mandibular border movements.

Twenty healthy subjects were studied on the effects of training on mandibular border movements. Maximum left (LL) and right (RL) lateral excursions, maximum protrusive movement (PT), maximum mouth opening (MO), the difference between left and right excursions (R-L), midline deflection (DF) during opening and closing and midline deviation of the jaw (MOD) at maximum opening position of mandibular border tracing with or without practicing and visual feedback were compared among various sessions. No significant difference has been found on the amount of border extension under the influence of training. However, 70 to 85% of the subjects had some improvement after verbal instruction practicing, while only 50 to 65% of the same subjects showed improvement through visual feedback. It is suggested that doing research related to the jaw border movement on healthy subjects does not have to train them to obtain comparable data. On the other hand, since repeated border tracing in healthy subjects did not worsen the results, practicing or visual feedback training might ascertain a repeatable border tracing.

Submucous fibrosis in Taiwan.

Thirty-five cases of submucous fibrosis have been collected in Taiwan. The fibrotic changes occurred most often in the buccal and palatal mucosa, and between the ages of 30 and 50 years. The occurrence of the disease correlated highly with the habit of betel nut chewing. Tobacco, hot spicy foods, and liquor were not important etiologic factors.