Pharmacological Management of Anxiety on Pain Occurrence During Root Canal Treatment: A Systematic Review

OBJECTIVE: To answer the question: “Does the pharmacological management of dental anxiety influence pain occurrence during root canal treatment?” METHODS: Searches on MEDLINE/PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Scopus, EMBASE and Open Grey were conducted until September 02, 2022. Only randomised clinical trials were included. The Cochrane risk of bias tool for randomized trials (RoB 2) was used. The overall quality of evidence was assessed through the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) tool. RESULTS: Initial screening resulted in 811 studies. Three hundred seventy-three were excluded for being duplicates. Of 438 eligible papers, ten studies met the inclusion criteria and were selected for full-text reading. Four studies were included in the final analysis. Three studies had a low risk of bias, and one was a high risk. GRADE demonstrated a low quality of evidence. CONCLUSION: There is insufficient evidence to determine whether the pharmacological control of anxiety can influence intraoperative pain occurrence.