Impact of Anxiety on the Satisfaction of Dental Implant Patients.

PURPOSE: To study the influence of anxiety on dental implant patient satisfaction, and to explore if hemoglobin levels and the amount of body fat affected patient satisfaction.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred three partially edentulous patients (mean age 42.06 years) who had received dental implant therapy were enrolled in the study. Self-administered questionnaires were given to those patients to evaluate their level of satisfaction with implant treatment. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) self-reported questionnaire was used to determine anxiety levels. Hemoglobin levels (HB) were measured using an electronic hemoglobin meter, and body fat (BF) was measured using a special diagnostic scale. Statistical analysis was conducted using T-test to assess any significant differences between the groups. Pearson Correlation was used to measure the correlation between variables.

RESULTS: Overall satisfaction for all patients was high (86.7%) for both STAI-trait and STAI -state anxiety groups. Highly significant differences in patient satisfaction were found between high and low STAI-state anxiety groups (p < 0.01). Patients with low STAI-state anxiety levels demonstrated significant negative correlations of many parts of patient satisfaction with HB levels and STAI-state scores. While for patients in the low STAI-trait anxiety group, the negative correlation was just with HB levels. For the patients with high STAI-state anxiety levels, a highly significant positive correlation was observed between many elements of patient satisfaction and BF and patient age.

CONCLUSION: The results of this study indicated that patient satisfaction with dental implant treatment was high in all patients. STAI-state anxiety had a greater impact on patient satisfaction than did trait anxiety. HB levels negatively affected patient satisfaction in patients with low STAI-trait and STAI-state anxiety levels. BF positively affected patient satisfaction in patients with high STAI-state anxiety levels.