Argumentative Essay On Dental Fear

As stated by the World Health Organization (WHO), ‘health’ is defined as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO, 1948). The health and wellbeing of individuals is generally determined by their circumstances and environment, a phenomenon referred to as the social determinants of health. WHO describes the social determinants of health as:

Hook: Odontophobia is the fear of the dentist, shockingly, many have a fear of this, and even teeth themselves. The thought of some stranger taking drills and shiny metal tools to your mouth is enough to understand the fear itself. Odontophobia is the reason I didn’t choose the occupation of a dentist; I chose the work of a dental hygienist. A dental hygienist will: remove stains, and plaque from teeth, apply fluorides to help protect teeth, take and develop dental x-rays, assess the patients’ oral health and report findings to dentists, document patient care and treatment plans, and educate patients about oral hygiene techniques.

Different people look at health in different ways. It can depend on their culture, environment, religion or age group. In order to have a clear understanding about how the people look at health, I have conducted a survey from a random sample of people who belongs to the above groups (e.g. people of different ages have been chosen).

Social determinants of health encompasses ethnicity, gender and social class. It is seen as the essential

Communities are sometimes largely unaware that social factors rather than medical ones, such as income, and employment status, shape our health. Our health is also determined by the health and social services we receive, and our ability to attain high education levels, food and safe housing, among other factors.

They reflect the social factors and physical conditions of the environment in which people are born, live, learn, play, work, and age. They impact a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes. Employment and working conditions; People in the high income group are more likely to be healthier than people in the middle income group, who in turn are more likely to be healthier than those in the lower income group. (Federal, Provincial and Territorial Advisory Committee on Population Health, Toward a Healthy Future, 1999, Ministry of Public Works and Government Services Canada.)

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Frequently dental anxiety can directly effect a child’s oral health. Oral health for children has a significant effect on their overall health; however, dental anxiety can present a major barrier to children receiving dental treatment (Bhatia & Chadwick, 2010, p. 88). Often times anxious pediatric dental patients can have more decayed, missing, and filled tooth surfaces compared with pediatric patients that have low levels of dental anxiety. (Porritt, et al., 2013, p. 130). It’s been reported that children diagnosed with active caries are found to be more fearful than other kids, and this is most like credited to previous negative dental treatment experiences (Taani, El-Qaderi, & Abu Alhaija, 2005, p. 84). Dental anxiety may be a contributing

Regardless of your political stance, dental care is a service that all people should have access to, privately, or publicly. In the United States alone, millions of Native Americans on reservations are stifled from receiving the much needed dental care they require, the consequences are harmful to their health and prosperity.

(WHO, 1948) describes health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease of infirmity’? There are other dimensions of health such as physical health, mental health and emotional health which can be broken down and looked at individually.

In dentistry, anxiety is categorized into two: Dental phobia and dental anxiety. A person with dental phobia tends to avoid treatment maybe because of unpleasant experience in the past. Dental anxiety, by contrast, relates to the psychological and physiological variations of a non-pathological fear response to a dentist’s appointment or treatment. Individuals who cancels, avoids, or postpones dental visits are the anxious patients (Bhola and Malhotra, 2014).It is a major dilemma in pediatric dental practice and it exists in a considerable proportion of children and adolescents. According to the study of Gao et al (2013), about 6-15% of the world's adult population avoids dental care due to dental anxiety and dental phobia. The catastrophic

The determinants of health are economic and social conditions that affect people’s health status. These influence the living and working conditions that impacts people’s everyday living condition. Factors such as the place and the environment we live in, genetics, educational level or work status and income, as well as friends and family are some of the aspects that affects our health condition. On the other hand, the people that have an access to good health care and have financial stability are less susceptible and are often less affected. (NANB, 2009)

We all have 32 teeth in our mouth and they are indispensable. The tooth, in itself, consists of two parts: the root buried in the bone and the crown that is in the oral cavity. In addition, the cost of a quality brush is now quite low compared to the many benefits.

There are many causes of dental phobia and reasons why individuals just do not want to visit the dentist bi-yearly for an exam or even for further procedures. While a lot of causes are unknown, there are some that are more obvious. Some people have a generalized fear of pain. This is a very common reason for an individual to skip the dentist office altogether. This reason of phobia is usually caused by an unpleased or painful previous dental experience or from someone else’s story about their negative experiences. An article from Web MD called Easing Dental Anxiety in Adults states, “Thanks to the many advances in dentistry made over the years, most of today’s dental procedures are considerably less painful or even pain-free” (2016).. A second cause behind some people’s dental phobia is fear of injections or fear of injection failure. The majority people are very afraid of needles. This fear increases when it involves needles inserted into their oral cavity. (Colgate, 2016). Some people even fear that the anesthesia has failed and it did not relieve them of their pain before the dental treatment begins. Along with the fear of injections comes the fear of anesthetic side effects. Some individuals dread the side effects that anesthesia is likely to cause, such as dizziness, nausea, and feeling faint. Others do not like the loss of feeling they experience in their oral cavity. A third cause of dental phobia is the feeling of helplessness and loss of control. People

However, phobia can even cause people to risk their health. For example, the fear of dentists can leave people suffering from it willing to risk the health of their teeth in order to avoid having to go through an exam or procedure ( MacKay). When one knows about an upcoming confrontation, it can be the reason why one can not sleep or finds it hard to focus on important tasks. Due the change in daily routine, this unrealistic fear can interfere with the ability to socialize, work, or go about everyday life, brought on by and object, event or situation. But even animals have anxieties and phobias just as every human being (www.phobia-help.de). A phobia is an irrational fear, one knows that the object or situation, one is scared off, can not hurt one, but one is still afraid. A reason for this is that the human mind can not distinguish what is real and imaginary. When one has uncontrollable anxiety attacks, he loses rational judgement, leading to complicated problems. However, anyone can develop a phobia, men and women, teens and young adults, and elderly lady or a one-year-old boy (MacKay).