Dentist-Patient Communication on Dental Anxiety Using the Social Media and Timing in Communication: A Double-blinded Randomized Controlled Trial
Conditions: Dental Anxiety, Timing in Dentist-Patient Communication
Sponsor: Karadeniz Technical University

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dentist–Patient Communication on Dental Anxiety using the Social media and Timing 
in Communication: A Randomized Controlled Trial 
 
Start: 2 April 2018 
End: January 3, 2020 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The study was designed as randomized, double-blinded, controlled trial. The patients 
scheduled to undergo impacted lower third molar removal at the oral and maxillofacial 
surgery clinic at Karadeniz Teknik University were selected by randomly between 2018 and 
2020  
Before participation, the study procedure was explained, and each patient who wished 
to participate provided informed consent. The study was approved and registered by the ethics 
committee of Karadeniz Technical University (approval no: 2020-153) in accordance with the 
principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and the recommendations of the CONSORT 
(consolidated standards of reporting trials) guidelines. 
Sample size calculation was performed with G*Power (ver 3.1) software according to 
the previous article (Omezli MM et al9.) with a 0.60 effect size, alpha error=0.05 and power 
90%. After the calculation, the required sample size was obtained as 33 for each group. 
Regarding the potential data loss, at least 33 patients were recruited for the study in eac 
group.  
Study Design 
All impacted right third molar tooth extractions were performed by a single mouth 
dental jaw surgeon. Post-op recommendations were given to all patients. An antibiotic and an 
analgesic were prescribed after the operation and only their use was allowed.  The evaluation 
scales (MDAS, STAI, and STAIT) were applied one week before the operation, when the 
surgical appointment was first arranged and one week after at the follow-up visit. The 
outcome parameters were recorded by the same clinician fully blinded to patient groups.  
The questions directed by patients to their dentist via IQRs have been categorized. 
Twelve question types were asked in a single Instagram account. Irrelevant questions were 
not recorded, and answers were given through the Instagram quick replies system. 

Explanation to each patient was made understandable and theoretically from the book of 
Fragiskos 
Measurement of Anxiety Levels 
The dental anxiety was selected as the primary outcome variable to rate the dentist–
patient communication using the social media effectiveness. In the present study, the 
Spielberger’s State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T and STAI-S), Modified Dental Anxiety 
Scale (MDAS) and VAS scales, which provide useful information about patient anxiety and 
have a positive correlation, were used for a comprehensive assessment of patient anxiety.  
Statistical Analysis 
IBM SPSS for Windows 17.0 was used in the all statistical analysis (IBM Corp, 
Armonk, NY). Descriptive statistics were given as median (min-max) for anxiety (MDAS, 
STAIS, STAIT) and pain scores (VAS), and frequency (%) for age and gender distributions. 
The distribution differences of age and gender between groups were given by Chi-square 
tests. In terms of anxiety scores, the comparison between the groups was evaluated with 
Kruskal Wallis, Mann Whitney U test and Bonferroni correction. Wilcoxon tests were used 
for paired anxiety scores data in each group. P <0.05 level was considered statistically 
significant. Bonferroni correction, p <0.01 level was considered significant in binary 
comparisons.