The effect of social media on perioperative anxiety of patients who will have an impacted wisdom tooth operation

The Effect of Social Media on Perioperative Anxiety of Patients Who Will Have an Impacted Wisdom Tooth Operation Impacted third molar tooth extraction is known to often cause anxiety. Anxiety has a negative effect on both the patient and the surgeon. In our study, the difference in anxiety of patients who watched and did not watch social media content before having their impacted third molar extracted was evaluated. Our study was conducted on 162 patients, including 82 patients who did not watch social media content before the impacted mandibular third molar tooth extraction (group 1) and 80 patients who watched social media content before the operation (group 2). The anxiety level of group 2 was found to be higher than group 1 when the MDAS and STAI anxiety scores were evaluated (P= 0.001 and P= 0.034, respectively). There were some differences in terms of education level, visits to the dentist, frequency of visit to the dentist, history of impacted tooth operation and anxiety; In the patient groups whose education level was high school and university, the MDAS anxiety score of group 2 was higher than the MDAS anxiety score of group 1 (P=0.044 and P=0.024, respectively). Similarly, in the patient group with high school education, the STAI anxiety score of group 2 was higher than the anxiety score of group 1 (P=0.037). In the group of patients who went to the dentist before, the MDAS anxiety score of group 2 was higher than that of group 1 (P<0.001). In the group of patients who went to the dentist when they felt a problem, the MDAS anxiety score of group 2 was higher than the anxiety score of group 1 (P=0.008). In the patient group without a history of impacted tooth operation, the MDAS anxiety score of group 2 was higher than the anxiety score of group 1 (P=0.002). When evaluated in terms of gender, the MDAS anxiety score of female patients in group 1 was found to be higher than male patients (P=0.003), whereas in group 2, no effect of gender on anxiety was found. In addition, patients in group 2 were evaluated in terms of social media type and content, and no relationship was found with anxiety.