Virtual Reality Relaxation to Decrease Dental Anxiety

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Dental Anxiety
• Interventions: Device: Virtual reality relaxation

• Registration Number: NCT03993080
• Lead Sponsor: University of Turku

Brief Summary

The aim is to apply short-term virtual reality relaxation to examine if it is effective in reducing pre-operative dental anxiety in primary health care using an RCT.

Detailed Description

Randomized controlled single-center trial with two parallel arms: Virtual Reality Relaxation (VRR) and Treatment As Usual (TAU) in a public oral health care unit. VRR group receiving a 1-3.5 minute 360° video immersing them in peaceful virtual landscape with audio features and sound supporting the relaxing experience. TAU groups remaining seated for 3 minutes in similar setting.

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2018-10-15
• Primary Completion: 2019-02-27
• Study Completion: 2019-02-27
• Status Verified: 2019-06
• Study First Submitted: 2019-06-19
• Study First Submitted QC: 2019-06-19
• Study First Posted: 2019-06-20
• Last Update Submitted: 2019-06-22
• Last Update Posted: 2019-06-25

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 277

Inclusion Criteria

• attending for dental treatment
• consenting
• able to complete Finnish questionnaire without assistance
• age 18 years or older

Exclusion Criteria

• those not meeting inclusion criteria

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Virtual reality relaxation	Virtual reality relaxation	Virtual reality relaxation using virtual landscape and audio features and sound

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Dental anxiety	immediately after intervention	post-test measured with Modified Dental Anxiety Scale, The measure has five questions, each with five reply alternatives from not anxious to extremely anxious (on a scale 1-5), MDAS sums up to the total scale (range 5-25) which is used as primary outcome. Higher scores indicate higher dental anxiety.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Anticipatory dental anxiety and treatment related dental anxiety	immediately after intervention	The secondary outcome variables are post-test scores for the two sub-scales of the MDAS referred to as 'anticipatory' (MDAS items 1 and 2) and 'treatment' dental anxiety (MDAS items 3, 4 and 5). Scales for sum up as anticipatory anxiety (Items 1 and 2: range 2-10) and treatment anxiety (Items 3-5, range 3-15). Higher scores indicate higher dental anxiety

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

University of Turku; 🇫🇮 Turku, Finland