ABSTRACT
UNLABELLED: The concept of the study appeared as a necessity of a better understanding the patients with mental disabilities, exposed to the need of professional dental treatment. AIM: The study's purpose consists in the investigation of mechanisms by which the patients with mental disabilities react while exposed to the action of a stress agent, represented in the study by the necessity of following a dental treatment. MATERIALS: The lot consisted in 52 patients with mental disabilities from the University Hospital of Psychiatry "Socola"-Iasi, who needed prosthetic restaurative treatment which implies the use of syringe with needle, extraction and endodonthic tools, dental turbine. METHOD: The evaluation was made on the basis of: the coping COPE questionnaire. The procedure consists in registering 14 scales for the measurement of so many forms of coping which can have a preponderantly active state or a passive one. RESULTS: From the statistical point of view, the only significant differences were found depending on the sex of patients in the case of coping C14 study method (using alcohol or medicines). The highest score was obtained for coping C7 (positive reinterpretation). CONCLUSIONS: Due to the analysis of parameters' values of coping in the studied lot, we can conclude that the patients with mental disabilities, in the need of dental treatment, preponderantly react by active mechanisms of coping, focused on the issue, in disfavour of passive ones.
