Effect of Aromatherapy during Initial Periodontal Therapy in Healthy Young Adults: Evaluation by Autonomic Nervous Activity according to Heart Rate Variability

<p> Purpose: Many patients experience fear and anxiety towards dental treatment. To ensure the safety and efficacy of dental treatment, it is important to reduce this fear and anxiety. Aromatherapy is thought to be a convenient method for doing so, but its use in the dental field has yet to be thoroughly investigated. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effect of aromatherapy during periodontal probing and scaling in healthy young adults by measuring variance in autonomic nervous activity (ANA) using a novel system we developed.</p><p> Methods: The subjects were 15 healthy young volunteers (mean age 26.1±1.1 years). Each subject participated in the no-sedation, aromatherapy, music sedation, and combination phases of this study. The sequence of the phases was randomly allocated to the subjects using a central allocation method. First, each subject’s anxiety towards dental treatment was evaluated using Corah’s Dental Anxiety Scale. In the no-sedation phase, our monitoring system was used to assess blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR), and ANA for 3 minutes prior to periodontal probing and scaling (pre-treatment) in both the sitting and supine position, and for 3 minutes during periodontal probing, 5 minutes during scaling, and 3 minutes after treatment (post-treatment) in the supine position. In the other phases, the same measurements were taken after the initiation of each sedation method. Furthermore, anxiety of the subject pre- and post-treatment was evaluated using a visual analog scale (VAS). ANA was evaluated by analyzing the low-frequency (LF) and high-frequency (HF) spectral components of ECG R-R intervals. The ratio of LF to HF (LF/HF) reflects sympathetic nervous activity (SNA). Statistical analyses were conducted using the Friedman test and the Wilcoxon signed-rank test with a significance level of 5%.</p><p> Results: BP, HR, and VAS scores showed little variance throughout the study. The LF/HF ratio was significantly lower during pre-treatment compared to treatment in the no-sedation phase and was significantly lower during pre-treatment in the sitting position and supine positions in the three sedation phases compared to the no-sedation phase.</p><p> Conclusion: In healthy young adults, aromatherapy significantly decreases SNA in the sitting and supine positions before periodontal probing and scaling compared to no-sedation.</p>