Dealing with Anxious Patients: A Systematic Review of the Literature on Nonpharmaceutical Interventions to Reduce Anxiety in Patients Undergoing Medical or Dental Procedures.

State (situational) anxiety can create suboptimal outcomes for patients across a variety of health care specializations. While anxiolytic medications reduce anxiety, problematic side effects can compromise outcomes. These challenges have spurred searches for nonpharmaceutical approaches to alleviate patient anxiety.

Dealing with Anxious Patients: An Integrative Review of the Literature on Nonpharmaceutical Interventions to Reduce Anxiety in Patients Undergoing Medical or Dental Procedures.

A previous systematic literature review (SLR) evaluated 501 experiments on reducing patient anxiety across medical and dental environments. This integrative review examines those interventions and explores possible mechanisms leading to relative success or failure within those environments, in the interest of interprofessional education and communication. Reviewers evaluated 501 experiments testing interventions for reducing patient anxiety in a variety of medical and dental health care settings.