Development and evaluation of the Jönköping Dental Fear Coping Model: a health professional perspective

Evaluation of the Jönköping dental fear coping model: a patient perspective

“…The scope of this paper was to study the J€ onk€ oping DFCM from a patient perspective. The perspective on the DFCM of dental health professionals has been reported on in a previous article, based on data originating from the same project [30]. In this study, we compared two groups of patients, one of them receiving a conventional treatment regime, while the treatment of the other group was guided by the DFCM.…”

“…Since it is primarily a financial question whether the DFCM should be introduced in clinical practice on a larger scale, there is a need for further studies of its usefulness and qualities, both from the patients' and the health professionals' point of view. As suggested in a previous study [30], the time required for seeing new patients need not be longer if a simplified version of the DFCM is used in clinical practice.…”

“…Following a randomization procedure (matched pairs design), the four study clinics in the present study were selected among the nine clinics used in our previous study [30] to ensure that the geographic areas they serve are representative of the larger group of clinic districts with respect to socio-economic status and being rural/urban. The four clinics were included for both treatment periods: Period I (conventional treatment) and Period II (DFCM-guided treatment).…”

“…Data from the two independent patient groups in Period I and II were compared in order to trace effects of the DFCM procedures. The detailed study design has been explained elsewhere [30].…”

“…By including patients unselectively, we expected to have a portion of patients with low to moderate fear, a patient category not often focussed on in research. The DFCM and the training in the model are explained in detail elsewhere [30]. Our hypotheses were the following: patients attending the study clinics after the introduction of the DFCM (Period II) report less discomfort, pain and tension, and greater satisfaction with the dental health professionals they meet, compared with patients attending the study clinics before the introduction of the DFCM (conventional treatment).…”