Does an Audio-Visual Preoperative Patient Education Influence Anxiety and Retention of Information for Impacted Mandibular Third Molar Removal?—A Randomized Blinded Trial

Background

Anxiety is commonly seen among patients undergoing mandibular third molar (MM3) surgery. Traditionally, OMF surgeons try to minimize patient anxiety through a verbal pre-operative patient education (PPE) during the informed consent process. Audio-visual (AV) aids have been tried as an alternative, but there is no clear consensus on whether the AV medium is superior.

Objectives

To evaluate and compare the effect of PPE through AV or verbal medium on perioperative anxiety levels and retention of PPE information among patients undergoing MM3 surgery.

Methods

A double-blinded randomized trial with a total of 76 patients was conducted. Group A received PPE by verbal modality, and Group B received PPE through AV modality. In both groups, baseline anxiety was assessed by State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T) questionnaire and peri-operative anxiety by self-reported visual analog scale (VAS) scores and hemodynamic parameters at different time periods during the MM3 surgery. Retention of PPE information was assessed using a 10-item single-response questionnaire at two time periods.

Results

No statistically significant differences were observed in the perioperative VAS scores, hemodynamic parameters and retention of PPE between the two groups.

Conclusion

The AV modality of PPE did not significantly influence patient anxiety and retention of PPE information during MM3 surgery.

Clinical Trial Registration

This randomized trial was prospectively registered with clinical trials registry, India (CTRI)—CTRI/2021/05/033898.