Effect of vibration devices on pain associated with dental injections in children: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Several methods including vibration have been proposed for pain control during a local anaesthetic injection. This study was aimed to evaluate the scientific evidence on vibration devices used to reduce injection pain perception in children.

METHODS

The search terms were chosen according to the Medical Subject Headings MeSH and non-MeSH. Potentially eligible studies involved the subjective or objective pain evaluation in children receiving any type of dental injection. An electronic search of published studies in English language was carried out in March 2020 on Scopus, Cochrane, and PubMed databases.Of 1659 articles retrieved initially, 14 were eligible to be included in the systematic review, of which eight articles were excluded. The vibration devices used in the studies included Buzzy or DentalVibe. Four studies using Dentalvibe contributed to the meta-analysis.

RESULTS

The results of meta-analysis indicated a mean difference of 0.057 for FLACC pain scores between intervention and control conditions (P-value = 0.740). Wong-Baker Faces scores showed a mean difference of 0.009 (P-value = 0.964), which also showed no statistically significant difference between the intervention and control groups.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings revealed that use of DentalVibe for Paediatric dental injections was not effective in reducing pain perception. However, use of Buzzy showed promising results.

The effectiveness of electronic pulsed soft tissue vibration compared with topical anaesthesia in reducing the pain of injection of local anaesthetics in adults: a randomized controlled split-mouth clinical trial

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an electronic hand-held pulsed vibration device on the pain of local analgesia (LA) injection and physiologic changes. A prospective randomized controlled clinical trial using split-mouth (crossover) design was implemented. The control-side injection was performed after using topical anaesthesia. The experimental side injection was carried out without topical anaesthesia, but with the aid of a switched-on vibration device. Overall, 332 dental LA injections were given to 166 patients for routine exodontia. The pain at penetration and pain during injection were significantly lower in the experimental sides (vibrations sides) compared with those of the controls (P<0.001). Similarly, the heart rate changes at penetration and during injections were significantly lower in the experimental sides (P<0.001). The vibration device was clinically and statistically more effective than topical anaesthesia in the reduction of dental injection pain in adults, measured subjectively and objectively, regardless of the gender, injection technique (infiltration or block) or anxiety level.

Telescopic Dental Needles versus Conventional Dental Needles: Comparison of Pain and Anxiety in Adult Dental Patients of Kerman University of Medical Sciences-A Randomized Clinical Trial

INTRODUCTION

Pain felt during dental injections is dependent on dental anxiety. Patients feel increased pain if anxiety in the treatment environment is high, and therefore it is important to reduce anxiety during treatment to reduce pain. The purpose of this study was to compare pain and anxiety levels experienced during injections using a newly invented telescopic-coated dental needle that covers the conventional needle and also has the capability of applying topical anesthesia through its unique design with the conventional dental injection needle.

METHODS

Dental injection anxiety questionnaires were completed by 60 adult patients who were randomly assigned to either the telescopic (a newly invented telescopic-coated dental needle that covers the needles) or the conventional group. Patients also completed visual analog scales to rate their pain perception during injection, their overall experience, and their future anticipated anxiety. Wilcoxon, Mann-Whitney, and Student t tests were used for statistical analysis. Statistical significance was defined as P < .05.

RESULTS

A total of 25 men and 35 women with an age range of 19-55 years (mean age of 38.7 ± 2.31 years) participated in this study. Pain levels reported during the injection using the telescopic-coated needle (4.13 ± 1.37) were significantly lower than those using the conventional needle (5.63 ± 1.57), with statistically significant differences between the 2 groups (P < .05). Patients experienced significantly lower overall postinjection anxiety (P < .05) and had more positive overall experience ratings with the telescopic-coated needles.

CONCLUSIONS

A new telescopic-coated dental needle was superior to a conventional injection system in pain perception and in reducing postinjection dental anxiety.