The Effect of Using a Camouflaged Dental Syringe on Children's Anxiety and Behavioral Pain.

Background: Seeing a dental syringe can be terrifying, especially for young children, and hiding it during local anesthesia (LA) administration can sometimes be challenging for the pediatric dentist.

Objective: To assess the effect of a camouflaged dental syringe on children's anxiety and behavioral pain in comparison to the traditional dental syringe during local anesthesia administration in pediatric patients.

Materials And Methods: This randomized clinical trial included cooperative and healthy 6- to 10-year-old children scheduled for non-urgent dental treatment that required buccal infiltration anesthesia (BIA) in the maxillary arch. The subjects were randomized into either the test or the control groups. In the test group, subjects received BIA using the camouflaged dental syringe. Subjects in the control group received the BIA using a traditional dental syringe. A single-trained dentist administered all the anesthesia. Heart rate (HR) was monitored at three different time points (before, during, and after) the BIA administration. Subjects' anxiety and behavioral pain were measured using Venham's Anxiety Rating Scale (VARS) and the Face, Leg, Activity, Cry, and Consolability (FLACC) scale, respectively, by two trained and calibrated investigators.

Results: A total of 60 subjects with a mean age of 8.3 ±1.3 years were included. The scores of the VARS in the subjects in the camouflaged group were somewhat lower than the subjects in the traditional group, but the observed difference did not reach statistical significance (=0.113). However, subjects in the camouflaged group showed significantly lower FLACC scores compared to the traditional group (=0.034).

Conclusion: The utilization of a camouflaged dental syringe is effective in improving children's behavior during local anesthesia administration; therefore, it is recommended as an alternative to using the traditional syringe.