As part of a study to investigate the effectiveness and efficiency of a combined behavioral and pharmacological fear reduction treatment, a computer program for conducting systematic desensitization therapy was developed.
Subjects are patients who are severely phobic of dental injections.
The computer program begins by showing two training videos, which teach patients deep breathing, distraction, and muscle relaxation techniques to use to combat fear. The program next takes patients through a hierarchy of seven two-minute video segments of an actor going through the steps involved in getting a dental injection. The computer program is interactive and self-paced. The patient may stop video segments at any time by clicking a mouse button. Patients are also asked to report their level of fear following each of the seven hierarchy segments. These data are automatically added to the study database. When a patient self-reports his/her fear as being higher than a four on a one-to-nine scale, the computer steps the patient back one hierarchy step to the preceding video. If a patient reports low fear, he/she views the next video segment in the hierarchy. Patients continue viewing the hierarchy videos in this manner until all seven segments are viewed with low anxiety. The program is designed to be used once a week, with a time limit of 30 minutes for viewing the hierarchy videos each visit.
A second module of the computer program cues a dental hygienist to act out each of the video scenes with a patient to allow subsequent practice in vivo. This module works identically to the video module, except that time is limited to nine segments rather than 30 minutes. The computer program also monitors and tracks heart rate. The data are stored at each session and algorithms summarize data for statistical analysis.
Supported by Grant No. DE 10735 from the National Institute of Dental Research, NIH
