Aim To assess the undergraduate students’ performance in detecting and staging caries and assessing activity using visual inspection. Design Two independent reviewers searched the literature through PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Lilacs databases, and OpenSINGLE. Meta‐analyses summarized the results concerning reproducibility and accuracy at D1 (considering all lesions) and D3 (including only cavitated lesions or lesions into dentin) levels. For activity, we considered sound surfaces plus inactive caries lesions vs active lesions. Meta‐regression assessed the effect of methodological variables on the outcomes. Results Fourteen studies were included. The mean reproducibility values were ≥0.52, except for interexaminer agreement when assessing caries activity (0.39; 95% CI 0.10‐0.67). The intra‐examiner reproducibility tended to be higher than the interexaminer reproducibility. Overall, undergraduate students’ performance in staging caries lesions using visual examination was good (AUC>0.85 and DOR>25). The sensitivity values were moderate; however, these were associated with excellent specificity values. Despite few pooled studies, caries activity assessment revealed moderate overall performance, with lower pooled sensitivity than pooled specificity. Students’ education level and background clinical experience had no influence on the accuracy and reproducibility of the visual inspection. Conclusion Undergraduate students’ performance in detecting and staging caries using visual inspection was good, although caries activity assessment still requires improvement.

Objectives: To measure dental anxiety in children, determine its association with behavior exhibited during treatment and evaluate the use of informative and aversive behavior management techniques. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out with 51 children aged 6-12 years submitted to restorative dental procedures at the pediatric dental clinic of the Franciscano University Center (Brazil) between May and December 2013. Anxiety was measured using the Venham Picture Test and behavior during treatment was analyzed using the Frankl Behavior Scale. Variables were submitted to descriptive statistics. The chi-square test was used to determine associations between anxiety and categorical variables, considering associations with pvalue p ≤ 0.05 to be statistically significant. Results: Twelve children (23.5%) exhibited anxiety prior to dental procedure. Anxiety was not significantly associated with age (p=0.669), gender (p=0.478), behavior during treatment (p=0.915) or behavioral management techniques (p=0.701). Moreover, no significant association was found between changes in the level of anxiety after procedure and the behavior management techniques used during treatment (p=0.828). Conclusion: A high percentage of children exhibited dental anxiety. However, anxiety prior to dental procedure was not associated with any of the variables analyzed and no association was found between changes in the level of anxiety after procedure and the informative or aversive behavior management techniques used during treatment.

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