The efficacy of local anaesthetics administered by general dental practitioners

Comparison of onset anesthesia time and injection discomfort of 4% articaine and 2% mepivacaine during teeth extractions

Objective:

To investigate the speed of action and injection discomfort of 4% articaine and 2% mepivacaine for upper teeth extractions.

Materials and Methods:

Forty-five patients were included in the articaine 4% group, and 45 in the mepivacaine 2% control group. After all injections, soft and hard tissue numbness was objectively gauged by dental probe at intervals of 15 s. Furthermore, the discomfort of the injections were recorded by the patients after each treatment on standard 100 mm visual analog scales, tagged at the endpoints with “no pain” (0 mm) and “unbearable pain” (100 mm).

Results:

There were significant differences in the meantime of first numbness to associated palatal mucosa and tooth of patients between mepivacaine and articaine buccal infiltration (BI) groups P = 0.01 and 0.01. Patients in the articaine group recorded earlier palatal mucosa and teeth numbness than those in the mepivacaine group. With regards to the discomfort of the needle injections, palatal injection was significantly more painful than BI (t-test: P < 0.001). Articaine buccal injection was significantly more painful than mepivacaine buccal injection (t-test: P <0.001). However, articaine palatal injection was less painful than articaine BI. Clinically, anesthesia onset time was faster in anterior upper teeth than upper middle and posterior teeth.

Conclusions:

BIs with 4% articaine was faster in achieving palate and teeth anesthesia than 2% mepivacaine for extraction of upper maxillary teeth. Patients in mepivacaine BI and articaine palatal injection groups reported less pain with needle injection. Failure of anesthesia was noticeable with maxillary multiple-rooted teeth.

Anxiety sensitivity as predictor of pain in patients undergoing restorative dental procedures

OBJECTIVES

The personality disposition to anxiety sensitivity refers to beliefs about negative consequences of bodily arousal. The concept has recently been successfully applied in research on chronic pain conditions. The present study investigated whether anxiety sensitivity interacts with dental fear to increase expected and experienced pain during routine dental treatment.

METHODS

Subjects were 97 patients undergoing dental procedures of excavation and filling. Anxiety dispositions were measured by the Anxiety Sensitivity Index and the Dental Anxiety Scale. Expected and experienced pain were assessed by affective and sensory verbal descriptor scales and a numerical rating scale measuring pain intensity.

RESULTS

Dentally fearful patients scoring high in anxiety sensitivity both expected and experienced more pain than low scorers did. Significant interactions were found predicting expected affective and intense pain and experienced pain intensity.

CONCLUSION

The results lend support to the assumption that dentally fearful patients with a disposition to high anxiety sensitivity amplify pain anticipations when exposed to the critical situation. When dentally fearful patients are under treatment, their beliefs about negative consequences of bodily arousal may negatively influence their evaluation of treatment related pain.

Dental trait anxiety and pain sensitivity as predictors of expected and experienced pain in stressful dental procedures

A prevailing hypothesis suggests that exaggerated pain expectations in dentally anxious and pain-sensitive patients might usually be disconfirmed by a lower level of pain experienced during treatment. The present study was conducted to investigate whether this contention also holds during stressful dental procedures. Patients reporting high and low levels of dental fear and of pain sensitivity were compared in their expected and experienced pain and in the concordance between the two measures. Participants were 97 patients undergoing extraction and root canal treatment. The measuring instruments used were the Dental Anxiety Scale (DAS), the Pain Sensitivity Index (PSI), affective and sensory pain descriptor scales, and a numerical pain-intensity scale. The results demonstrated that patients, in general, expected more pain than they subsequently experienced. Subjects with a high DAS score both expected and experienced more pain than those with a low DAS score. Within the group of subjects with a high DAS score, those indicating high pain sensitivity expected and experienced more pain than their counterparts; additionally, only those reporting low pain sensitivity disconfirmed their high pain expectancies. The results suggest that during stressful dental procedures, patients indicating dental anxiety and pain sensitivity above median levels are especially at risk of stabilizing exaggerated pain expectations and dental fear.

Psychological factors and perceptions of pain associated with dental treatment

Although pain during dental treatment has been identified as playing a major role in the onset of dental anxiety and is a major concern of patients when seeking dental care, there have been very few studies of the prevalence of pain during dental treatment and the factors associated with patients' perceptions of pain. This study used data from a longitudinal population-based study to assess the proportion of dental attenders who experienced pain while having dental treatment and the psychological characteristics which predisposed them to experience pain. Of 1422 subjects who completed questionnaires at baseline and five-year follow-up, 96.4% had visited a dentist over the observation period. Two fifths, 42.5%, reported having pain during treatment and one-fifth, 19.1%, had pain that was moderate to severe in intensity. Reports of pain were associated with the types of treatment received, and a number of baseline sociodemographic and psychological factors. In a logistic regression analysis predicting the probability of pain, a variable documenting the number of types of invasive treatment received (restorations, extractions, crowns/bridges, root canal therapy and periodontal treatment/surgery) had the strongest independent effect. Pain was also more likely to be reported by those with previous painful experiences and those who were anxious about dental treatment, expected treatment to be painful and felt that they had little control over the treatment process. Pain was less likely to be reported by those who said they were unwilling to accept or tolerate pain. Younger subjects and those with higher levels of education were more likely to report pain than older subjects and those with a lower educational level. These results indicate that pain is as much a cognitive and emotional construct as a physiological experience. They also have implications for dentists' behaviour when providing dental care.

A clinical audit into the success rate of inferior alveolar nerve block analgesia in general dental practice

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to produce some observational evidence of the success rate of inferior alveolar nerve block (IDB) analgesia that is achieved in general dental practice. The objective was to help provide some measure of expected failure rates and help dental practitioners in their self-appraisal of this crucial basic skill.

METHOD

Up to 100 consecutive IDB analgesia procedures for four dentists were recorded. In a subdivision of this study 200 consecutive IDBs for a fifth dentist were recorded. This dentist had the greatest experience of giving IDB analgesia of the dentists in this study. In this part of the study the dentist made a note if he anticipated that the procedure would fail. The reason for this was that it was felt that experienced dental practitioners could predict when failure was about to occur. The level of facial nerve palsy was also recorded.

RESULTS

Overall, 533 of 580 (91.9%) local anaesthetic administrations were deemed to be successful. The only factor that significantly affected the likelihood of success was the practitioner administering the local anaesthetic, and this was only borderline statistically significant. In order to be certain that the other factors did not affect the outcome, the data were re-analysed using the technique of Poisson regression. This technique investigated the effects of each of the factors in turn while controlling for the differences in success that can be attributed to the different practitioners. The regression analyses also did not detect any differences in success that could be attributed to any of the other recorded factors. The incidence of facial palsy was 0.3%.

CONCLUSION

This paper gives an insight into the possible success rates to be encountered by general dental practitioners when they administer IDB analgesia. The only recorded factor that could be shown to affect the chance of a successful local analgesic was the operator. The incidence of facial nerve palsy at 0.3% may be more common than has previously been considered.

An investigation of language used by children to describe discomfort during dental pulp-testing

AIM

Studies of the descriptions of pain by children have neglected their linguistic development, therefore estimates of dental pain in children may not be accurate. This study sought (1) to identify words chosen by children to describe dental pain and (2) to establish the effect of linguistic development on that description.

SAMPLE

Seventy-eight consecutive children between the ages of 5 and 13 years attending a paediatric dental clinic.

METHOD

Each child completed the WORD reading comprehension test. They then underwent a pulp test and a simulated pulp test, administered by a dentist in a counterbalanced order, of a healthy primary canine or permanent incisor, according to the child's age. To describe each test, the children had to (1) select words from a list of 58 read by the experimenter and (2) give ratings on scales representing 'sore' and 'tingly'.

RESULTS

Analysis of variance confirmed that the children chose more words for the pulp test than for the simulated test (P < 0.001); the former also elicited higher ratings for 'sore' and 'tingly'. The numbers of words chosen were transformed by a square root constant to ensure a normal distribution. Multiple regression analysis then showed that (1) the better the children's reading comprehension, the fewer words they chose, possibly because they were less inclined to choose unfamiliar words, and (2) the older they were, the more words they chose, possibly because of having more experience of pain. There were similar findings for ratings of 'sore' and 'tingly'.

CONCLUSIONS

To assess children's experience of pain (1) they need to be presented with a list of words like the ones in this study, (2) the numbers of words chosen by them would represent the severity of pain, and (3) those numbers need to be adjusted for the children's reading comprehension and age.

Dental fear in children--a proposed model

Over the past eleven years, we have worked together to treat children who are dentally phobic. This has enabled us to develop an understanding of how children come to be dentally fearful. We have constructed a model of child dental fear which helps us in our work. It is important to acknowledge that fear is a normal phenomenon when any of us are exposed to threat. Helping dentally fearful children appraise or evaluate threat, face their fear and build upon their strengths is the task facing dentists and, occasionally, psychologists. The consequences for children of not doing so are extreme difficulty with accepting and ultimately total avoidance of treatment. Both of these can persist into adulthood. First, we propose to discuss the normality of fear in children, placing dental fear within a developmental context. We will then outline a model for assessing and treating dental fear which identifies five discrete but interrelated factors. Each of the factors and its treatment is illustrated with examples.

How to overcome failed local anaesthesia

Local anaesthetic failure is an unavoidable aspect of dental practice. A number of factors contribute to this, which may be related to either the patient or the operator. Patient-dependent factors may be anatomical, pathological or psychological. This paper considers the reasons for unsuccessful dental local anaesthetic injections and describes techniques which may be useful in overcoming failure.