RESULTS Application of the Oral Health Impact Profile ( OHIP ) demonstrated that disease of pulpal origin affects quality of life with moderate severity , primarily through physical pain and psychological discomfort , and that RCT results in broad improvement of quality of life .
Satisfaction with RCT is extremely high , but cost is the primary reason for dissatisfaction .
Anxiety and fear affect RCT patients , profoundly influencing their behaviors , including treatment avoidance , and their pain experience .
Fear of pain is " fair " to " very much " prior to RCT .
Pain is widely feared , disliked , and remembered ; however , disease of pulpal origin generally produces moderate , but not severe pain .
RCT causes a dramatic decrease in pain prevalence and severity over the week following treatment .
Survival rates of teeth after RCT are very high ; complication rates are low .
Cost is a barrier to RCT , but initial costs , lifetime costs , cost effectiveness , cost utility , and cost benefit all compare extremely well to the alternatives involving replacement using implants or fixed prostheses .
INTRODUCTION Root canal treatment ( RCT ) success criteria inform us of the path to bony healing and of prognostic factors , but tell little about how the patient perceives , feels , or values RCT .
Patients choose , undergo , and pay for RCT , they live with the result , and inform their community .
The purpose of this narrative review was to appraise patient-centered outcomes of initial non-surgical RCT and nonsurgical retreatment , in adults .
Predicting dental avoidance among dentally fearful Australian adults.
Dental fear is related to poorer oral health outcomes , and this might be explained by the less frequent dental visiting of many fearful people . The objectives of this study were to investigate differences between dentally fearful people who regularly attend the dentist and fearful people who infrequently visit the dentist . A r and om sample of 1,082 Australians ≥ 15 yr of age completed a mailed question naire ( response rate = 71.6 % ) , and 191 dentate , high-fear adults ( ≥ 18 yr of age ) were selected for further analysis . Dental avoidance was recorded if a person was currently avoiding or delaying dental care and if he/she had not been to a dentist in the previous 2 yr . Among the selected dentally fearful adults , dental avoidance was predicted by smoking status , toothbrushing frequency , coping strategy use , perceptions of dental visits as uncontrollable and unpredictable , and by anxiety relating to numbness , not knowing what the dentist is going to do , and cost . In a multivariate logistic regression model , smoking , toothbrushing , coping , and anxiety about numbness and cost remained as statistically significant predictors , with the model accounting for 30 % of the variance . While several variables were associated with dental avoidance  among fearful adults , the nature and causal directions of these associations remain to be established
RESULTS Application of the Oral Health Impact Profile ( OHIP ) demonstrated that disease of pulpal origin affects quality of life with moderate severity , primarily through physical pain and psychological discomfort , and that RCT results in broad improvement of quality of life .
Satisfaction with RCT is extremely high , but cost is the primary reason for dissatisfaction .
Anxiety and fear affect RCT patients , profoundly influencing their behaviors , including treatment avoidance , and their pain experience .
Fear of pain is " fair " to " very much " prior to RCT .
Pain is widely feared , disliked , and remembered ; however , disease of pulpal origin generally produces moderate , but not severe pain .
RCT causes a dramatic decrease in pain prevalence and severity over the week following treatment .
Survival rates of teeth after RCT are very high ; complication rates are low .
Cost is a barrier to RCT , but initial costs , lifetime costs , cost effectiveness , cost utility , and cost benefit all compare extremely well to the alternatives involving replacement using implants or fixed prostheses .
INTRODUCTION Root canal treatment ( RCT ) success criteria inform us of the path to bony healing and of prognostic factors , but tell little about how the patient perceives , feels , or values RCT .
Patients choose , undergo , and pay for RCT , they live with the result , and inform their community .
The purpose of this narrative review was to appraise patient-centered outcomes of initial non-surgical RCT and nonsurgical retreatment , in adults .