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Abstract
This study assessed trauma-related sequelae of 56 highly anxious patients attending
a dental fear clinic. It was also examined whether such symptomatology interferes
with anxiety reduction in response to a cognitive-behavioral treatment approach. About
34 patients (59%) indicated that they had experienced one or more aversive dental
events that could explain the onset of their dental anxiety. There was no difference
between the dental anxiety scores of patients who reported such a background and those
who did not. Severity of trauma-related symptomatology was indexed by the Impact of
Event Scale (IES). The mean IES score of patients with a traumatically induced dental
fear was remarkably high (33.0; SD=19.7). Furthermore, there was a strong direct relationship
between severity of trauma-related symptomatology and severity of dental anxiety (shared
variance was 38%). Two patients (10%) met all DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for Posttraumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD) on the basis of the Self-Rating Scale for PTSD. However, no
evidence was found to suggest that either a traumatic background, or level of trauma-related
symptomatology, has a negative effect on treatment outcome.