AWARENESS ABOUT OPHIDIOPHOBIA AMONG UNDERGRADUATE DENTAL STUDENTS- A QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY

Authors

  • Vaishali Babu, Dhanraj Ganapathy, L. Keerthi Sasanka,

Abstract

Introduction: Ophidiophobia means fear of snakes. Ophis means snakes and phobia stands for fear. The term Ophidiophobia comes under the common term herpetophobia which means fear of reptiles.  Ophidiophobia was considered as the 2nd most common phobia in the world. And about 1/3rd of the world's adult population was affected by this phobia. The diagnosis of this phobia is very much tricky. Some symptoms of Ophidiophobia are shaking, crying (or) running away from snakes when they are encountered with snakes. The aim of this study is to evaluate awareness of Ophidiophobia among dental students.

Materials and methods: This study was conducted among 134 dental students who were randomly selected from the dental colleges to analyse their knowledge on Ophidiophobia. A pre validated and reliable questionnaire containing 15 questions has been shared to dental students through google survey form (Annexure 1). Statistical analysis was performed by  using  Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 23.0 (IBM, Chicago, USA). Descriptive statistics was performed to present  the frequency distribution of each question from the questionnaire.

Result: For 42.54% of dental students learned behaviour is the major cause for Ophidiophobia. About 22.39% of students experience both the symptoms, nausea and shortness of breath. Majority of dental students (64.93%) accepted that exporture treatment is the better treatment for ophidiophobia,  39.55% reported that there is no need to use cognitive behavioural theory to treat Ophidiophobia and 63.43% accepted that medication commonly used to help with Ophidiophobia is beta blockers. Most dental students (41.79%) accepted that counselling alone is sufficient to overcome Ophidiophobia.

Conclusion:The treatment for this phobia is not particular and there is no surety of requiring from this phobia. Drugs like betablockes and sedatives cause so many side effects on a person's health. 

Published

2022-05-01

How to Cite

Vaishali Babu, Dhanraj Ganapathy, L. Keerthi Sasanka,. (2022). AWARENESS ABOUT OPHIDIOPHOBIA AMONG UNDERGRADUATE DENTAL STUDENTS- A QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY. Drugs and Cell Therapies in Hematology, 10(3), 1936–1944. Retrieved from http://dcth.org/index.php/journal/article/view/1110

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