Abstract
The aim of this systematic review was to investigate the effect of treatment duration on children’s behavior and/or anxiety in the dental setting. To this end, a systematic search was conducted in Pubmed/Medline and Scopus from 1970 to march 2017 for English language articles that assessed the relationship between dental treatment duration or length, and fear/anxiety or behavior in children aged <12 with no confounding medical and/or psychological history and neuro-psychiatric disabilities. Four studies investigating the effect of treatment duration on children’s behavior during and/or after treatment were included. None of the reviewed studies investigated the effect of treatment duration on children’s dental anxiety or fear. There was a general tendency towards deterioration of children’s behavior with an increase in treatment duration. In conclusion, our results undermine the validity of current suggestions about the appropriate treatment duration. Further clinical trials are needed to establish appropriate treatment duration for more effective behavioral management of pediatric patients during dental proce-dures.
Highlights
Dental practitioners should consider some key requirements in treatment protocols, including interaction between practitioner, patient and parents; socio-demographic variables and the complexity and JODDD, Vol 12, No 1 Winter 2018 duration of treatment.[1]
A systematic search was conducted in Pubmed/Medline and Scopus from 1970 to march 2017 for English language articles that assessed the relationship between dental treatment duration or length, and fear/anxiety or behavior in children aged
A systematic search was conducted by searching electronic databases Pubmed/ Medline and Scopus for English language peer-reviewed articles published between 1970 and March 2017 using the search terms (("treatment duration" OR "treatment length" OR "appointment length" OR "dental treatment duration" OR "dental treatment length" OR "dental appointment length" OR "dental anxiety" OR "dental phobia" OR "dental fear" OR "odontophobia" OR "dental distress" OR "dental stress" OR "dentist phobia") AND ("infant" OR "child" OR "adolescent" OR "children" OR "young" OR "young person" OR "minor" OR "pediatric" OR "pediatric"))
Summary
Dental practitioners should consider some key requirements in treatment protocols, including interaction between practitioner, patient and parents; socio-demographic variables and the complexity and JODDD, Vol 12, No 1 Winter 2018 duration of treatment.[1] Children generally differ in their ability to meet practitioner’s demands, and cope with the length of time during which they must be treated. This means that strengthening children’s confidence must be addressed to create optimal treatment by intervening at the level of their coping skills relating to the nature of some specific treatment demands.[2,3,4]. Shorter appointments have been suggested as a cooperation-enhancing approach for pediatric dental patients.[4,5] children usually interpret longer treatment sessions as a sign of major problems that might cause significant anxiety leading to the development of behavioral management problems.[4,6] On the other hand, it is practically impossible to effectively complete many procedures in a short appointment and decreasing the treatment period may be undesirable.[4,6]
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