KNOWLEDGE, AWARENESS, AND PREVALENCE OF HEMOPHOBIA AMONG UNDERGRADUATE DENTAL STUDENTS - A QUESTIONNAIRE STUDY

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Phobia is fear or nervousness. Hemophobia deals with a phobia of blood, injury, and sometimes needles, dentists, doctors. It is a part of Blood-infection-injury (BII) phobia. Hemophobia leads to a sudden drop in blood pressure and heart rate.

AIM: To identify hemophobic dentistry students, as it will be difficult for dentists in the future to deal with large volumes of blood loss throughout various treatments..

MATERIALS AND METHODS: 109 dental students from Saveetha Dental College participated in the survey conducted on Google forms. The data was analyzed with the help of SPSS v23.0 software. Pie charts and bar charts were analyzed and observed. A Chi-square test was also done to check the relation of hemophobia among genders.

RESULT: Out of 109 people, 22.84% panicked and 15.60% fainted while seeing blood. 40.37% are afraid of needles and injections. The majority (68.81%) of dentists claim that they can cope up with witnessing high amounts of blood loss during dental procedures.

CONCLUSION:  Males seem to be more hemophobic than females in this study. Hemophobic students must be treated with exposure/cognitive therapy as they have to do procedures that involve many blood loss associated with dental procedures.