Assessment of Anxiety Levels in Children Receiving Dental Treatment Using Rubber Dam- A Randomized Control Trial

Isolation is the major thing in the quality of treatment. But often clinicians consider rubber dam use can cause anxiety and fear evoking stimuli that may hamper their rapport with the child and thereby affect the quality of treatment. This creates a reluctance among practitioners to use rubber dams in the pediatric population.The aim of the study was to assess the anxiety levels in children in the age group of 6 to 10 years undergoing dental treatment with or without a rubber dam using the Animoji scale. This study was conducted on 48 children in the age group of 6 - 10 years, divided into two groups: group 1 (cotton roll isolation) and group 2 (rubber dam isolation). Anxiety levels were assessed using an animoji (animated emoji) scale which has a scale of score 1 to score 5 (very happy to very unhappy). The obtained data were statistically analyzed using SPSS(Statistical Package for Social Sciences) Version 24.0 (IBM Corporation, Chicago, USA). Descriptive and analytical statistics were done. The independent t-test was performed to know the differences between the two groups.The result proved that by comparing group 1 and group 2 there was no statistically significant difference between the two different groups p>0.05.This study concludes that the use of rubber dams does not create a significant rise in anxiety levels in children. Thus considering the advantages of rubber dams they should be used in Pediatric dentistry in an attempt to provide quality dental treatment for children.