Comparison of brief relaxation and music distraction in the treatment of dental anxiety - a randomized controlled clinical trial

Background: Patients with dental anxiety are a heterogeneous group with origins, onset age and manifestations which vary to a great extent between individuals. Among the management options for dental anxiety, non-pharmacological management methods were found to be superior to anxiolytic drug therapies. Medications provide only short term cost effective solutions and an increased patient risk exists due to drug interaction or overdose. Present trend is towards non aversive techniques.Aim and Objectives:  To compare the effectiveness of music distraction and brief relaxation method in anxious pediatric patients.Materials and methods: Ninety children of age group of 6-12years were selected randomly by simple random sampling and were divided into three groups with thirty children in each group grouped as - Group A: Control group, Group B: Patients treated with brief relaxation, Group C: Patients treated with music distraction. The patient‘s subjective anxiety recorded using modified version of the self-report Faces Scale by LeBaron et al. Study investigated using two physiological parameters i.e. heart rate and oxygen saturation, measured with pulse oximetery at different intervals. Results: The study result showed the brief relaxation better efficacy than music distraction in reducing anxiety as indicated by both the subjective and objective parameters except oxygen saturation which were used. But music distraction also helps in lowering the anxiety in children when music distraction group was compared with the control group.Conclusion: Our study found out that even though both brief relaxation and music distraction have the ability to reduce dental anxiety in children, brief relaxation showed more potential in reducing anxiety.