Combine or Separate Future Pain? The Impact of Current Pain on Decisions about Future Dental Treatments

Patients are often given the option of undergoing future painful treatments in one or multiple sessions (e.g., extracting two wisdom teeth on one or two different days). In a randomized controlled field experiment, we investigated the impact of transient pain on patients’ decision to combine or separate future periodontal treatments. The main results show that most patients preferred to have the future treatments take place in one session when they made their choice after a painless examination (i.e., general clinical exam). However, the patients’ preference for combining the future treatments did not differ from chance when the choice was made immediately following a painful examination (i.e., pocketing and bleeding on probing exam). The impact of pain on decision making is observed within and between participants. Current pain seems to lead patients to question their ability to endure future painful treatments in one session.