Emotional and sensory focus as mediators of dental pain among patients differing in desired and felt dental control.

Giving patients instructions to focus on sensory (vs. emotional) stimuli during a root canal procedure significantly reduced self-reported pain, but only among patients who were classified as having strong desire for control and low felt control in dental situations. Among patients with low felt control and low desire for control, sensory-focus instructions produced greater pain reports than did emotion-focus instructions. Finally, high desire-low felt patients reported higher levels of expected pain before treatment than did other patient subgroups. These data suggested limiting conditions for H. Leventhal's (1982) theory of emotion and supported the idea that desire for control might moderate the effects of perceived control.