Dentists' attitudes towards acute pharmacological pain management in children and adolescents

Abstract

SPDs recommend preoperative analgesics more often than GDPs do. GDPs seem to underuse local anaesthetics when treating children and adolescents. SPDs also use pain management strategies more frequently than GDPs. Among GDPs, pain management is less frequent when treating primary teeth than permanent teeth.

Dentists’ self-perceived stress and difficulties when performing restorative treatment in children

“…The results from Paper I regarding never or rarely using LA among younger children are concordant to the conclusion by Berlin et al, who raised questions about dentists' use of pain-reducing strategies and an underuse of LA when treating children and adolescents (49).…”

“…This result is supported by a Swedish study that concluded that there is an underuse of LA when performing dental treatment among children and adolescents. Further, they report that PDs used LA equally often when treating primary and permanent teeth compared to GDPs, who used less LA when treating primary teeth (49).…”

“…It is important to treat every child individually, and dentists treating children should always conduct a thorough interview for disclosing previous experiences regarding both dental and medical treatment history and further the parent's possible DF (25). The use of LA and the injection itself can cause anxiety to the minor child, and administration is a known stressor (49,59,60), but different adaption techniques and strategies for managing LA should be highlighted.…”

Postoperative pain profile in 10–15-year-olds after bilateral extraction of maxillary premolars

“…Based on this, and the fact that all administration of pharmacologic agents comes with a risk (Matok et al 2016;Norman et al 2014), it can be questioned if there is any reason for clinical guidelines in this area. Analogously, there is no rationale for introducing or routinely using administration of analgesics in conjunction with routine dental treatments such as filling therapies or uncomplicated extractions (Berlin et al 2018). When considering use of pharmacological agents with children, there must be a clear-cut reason for doing so.…”

“…No systematic review on postoperative administration of analgesics for preventing/reducing postoperative pain has been identified. Despite the lack of scientific support, there are reports of dentists using oral analgesics to reduce pain in conjunction with extractions and filling therapy (Berlin et al 2018). Thus, there is a need for well-designed clinical studies to evaluate the effect of oral analgesics to prevent pain, and based on this to formulate clinical guidelines.…”