Foundation investigates dental patients’ anxiety triggers

The Medical Protection Society (MPS) Foundation is funding research which aims to develop interventions for patients who suffer from extreme anxiety when visiting the dentist.

The AngST project will see experts in dentistry and filmmaking at the University of Plymouth working in tandem to assess and then develop ways to manage dental anxiety. It will also offer a novel approach to detecting subtle signs or “tells” of anxiety in the dental clinic by building a partnership between patients, clinicians, filmmakers, ethnographers, researchers and the public.

The project is one of ten awarded funding, out of over 150 expressions of interest received, in the first research grant programme of the MPS Foundation. MPS – of which Dental Protection is part – launched the MPS Foundation last year with the aim to create sustainable global change through ambitious research focussed on patient safety and the wellbeing of healthcare professionals and teams.