[Effects of Different Psychological Interventions on Relieving Orthodontic Pain in Patients with Different Personalities: a Preliminary Study]

Purpose: To investigate the effects of different psychological interventions on relieving orthodontic pain in patients with different personalities.

Methods: Three hundred patients were involved and randomized into five groups:control group, cognitive therapy group, music therapy group, muscle relaxation group and suggestion therapy group. Eysenck personality questionnaire was used to evaluate personality traits of patients, and visual analogue scale (VAS) was used to assess patients' intensity of orthodontic pain at 2, 6, 12, 24, 48 and 72 h after initial archwire placement.The VAS scores were analyzed via repeated measures analysis of variance with SPSS 16.0 software package.

Results: The cognitive group,music group, muscle relaxation group and suggestion group were reported lower pain than control group (P<0.001). The music group showed a greater decrease in VAS than other four groups in patients with a tendency of extroversion and stable mood (P<0.01).The suggestion group showed less pain than cognitive group in patients with a tendency of extroversion and unstable mood (P<0.05).For patients with other personality traits, there was no significant difference among the four intervention groups.

Conclusions: Cognitive therapy, music therapy, muscle relaxation and suggestion therapy could relieve orthodontic pain effectively. For patients with a tendency of extroversion and stable mood, music therapy was the first choice to control orthodontic pain. Cognitive therapy could be used for patients with other personality traits.