Purpose: To evaluate the effects of three caries removal methods on children's dental fear by physiological measure.
Methods: 90 children with caries lesions into dentin in primary molars were divided into three groups randomly: Chemomechanical carious removal group, atraumatic restorative treatment (ART) groups and traditional rotary instrument group. The baseline of blood pressure, pulse was recorded before the treatment. Then the blood pressure and the pulse of each subjects were measured 5, 10 and 15 minutes and at the end of the treatment respectively. The dental fear was evaluated by observing the trend of blood pressure and pulse in the process of the treatment, and the results were analyzed by SPSS11.5 software package, using one-way ANOVA and Student-Newman-Keuls methods to determine the effects of different caries removal methods on children's dental fear.
Results: The degree of dental fear in traditional drilling group was significantly higher than that in chemo-mechanical group and ART group. The difference of each index between rotary instrument group and ART group was significant at the first time-point from the beginning of the treatment (P<0.05), but not significantly between rotary group and chemo-mechanical group (P>0.05), and between ART and chemo-mechanical group. (P>0.05). At the second time-point, the difference of systolic blood pressure was significant between rotary group and chemomechanical group(P<0.05), and the same between rotary group and ART group (P<0.05), but not between ART and chemo-mechanical group (P>0.05), while the difference of the other index among the three groups was not significant(P>0.05). There was no significantly difference of each index among the three groups at the time-point afterwards(P>0.05).
Conclusion: Compared to traditional caries removal method, chemomechanical technique and ART may decrease children's dental fear effectively.