Comparative Evaluation of various Distraction Techniques while Adminstering local Anaesthesia on the dental Anxiety, Behaviour

Back ground: Distraction involves diverting children's attention away from painful stimuli during invasive dental procedures, helps to alleviate the child's fear and anxiety and is most effective when tailored to the child's developmental level. Aim: Comparative evaluation of various distraction techniques while adminstering local anaesthesia on dental anxiety, behavior and pain levels of children. Materials & Methodology: 45 Healthy children aged 6-12 years were included in the study and were randomly allocated into following three groups: GROUP A- Control group, GROUP B- Active form using Distraction Cards and GROUP C- Passive form using Kaleidoscope. Each child in Groups A, B, and C were given 5 min to get habituated to the distraction, before the inferior alveolar nerve block (IANB) procedure began. Prior to administration of the local anaesthetic agent, dental anxiety of the child was measured using the faces version of the Modifed Child Anxiety Dental Scale (MCDAS(f)). Following the administration of local anaesthesia, each child was asked to rate the pain they felt using the Wong Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale (WBFPRS).To overcome the drawback of the self-reported scale, FLACC scale (Faces Legs Activity Cry and Consolability scale), was used. Assessment of child’s behaviour was done using the Venham’sbehavior rating scale. Result: The data obtained was statistically analyzed using One-Way ANOVAand Tukey Post-Hoc Test. Conclusion: Active distraction techniques generally result in lower anxiety, pain, and physiological responses (as indicated by lower scores and pulse rates) compared to conventional techniques. Passive distraction shows intermediate results, often not significantly different from either group