Survey of Usage and Type of Topical Anesthesia among Dentists of Tricity

Abstract

Introduction: Local anaesthesia injection is widely accepted as the gold standard for pain management during various dental procedures. Intra-oral topical anaesthesia not only reduces the pain of injection prick but also several minor dental procedures can be carried out under topical anaesthetic. Study aimed to determine the usage, type & effectiveness of various topical anaesthetics used for minor dental procedures in pediatric patients. Material and Methods: A self-structured, closed ended questionnaire was emailed to 100 private dental practitioners in the tricity and were asked to fill and mail it back. Results: 59% dentists responded, out of them 70.7% routinely used topical anesthetic. 64.8% used Lidocaine gel for administration of local anesthesia. 24.1% used topical anesthetic for extraction of nearly exfoliating deciduous teeth. 42.6% responded that the effect of topical anesthetic was achieved between 30 seconds to 1 minute. Conclusion: All the dentists were aware of using topical anesthetic and the most preferred delivery system was gel.

Avaliação do uso de anestésico tópico por cirurgiões dentistas professores de uma universidade particular do Nordeste Brasileiro

“…Crout et al [14] avaliou a eficácia dos anestésicos locais usados e descobriu que o EMLA é muito eficaz como creme tópico intraoral, apesar disso, o gel foi a forma de apresentação mais utilizada pelos entrevistados do presente estudo, com 89%, enquanto que em uma pesquisa realizada por Dhindsa [15], essa porcentagem cai para 58%.…”

The Use of Local Anesthesia in Pediatric Dentistry: A Survey of Specialists’ Current Practices in Children and Attitudes in Relation to Articaine

“…Among the dentists who never used topical anesthesia in children, the indicated reason was the perception that it was not effective. Previous research by Kohli et al [ 19 ] and Dhindsa et al [ 21 ] reported that 1% and 2% of respondents, respectively, perceived topical anesthesia to be ineffective. The lack of effectiveness can be attributed to the different factors that govern the clinical efficacy of topical anesthetics such as anesthetic's type, formulation, and concentration used, as well as the duration and site of application [ 26 ].…”

“…The sample calculations were performed with the sample size calculator V 2.0 using a single proportion formula based on data from previous relevant research [ 20 , 21 ]; (proportion ( p ) = 86%, precision = 10%, alpha error = 0.05, power = 0.8). The minimum sample size required was 47.…”

“…The literature is scarce on studies investigating the clinical usage of local anesthesia in pediatric patients [5,[19][20][21][22], and no such study has been conducted previously in Jordan. Therefore, the current study aimed to evaluate the clinical practices and knowledge of local anesthesia in children.…”

“…The questionnaire was generated from some previous surveys in the literature [19][20][21][22] and from a series of questions designed by the authors to gather information related to the clinical administration of local anesthesia and injection techniques in children. The questionnaire was initially piloted with five dentists to ensure its clarity.…”