Efficacy of vibrotactile device DentalVibe in reducing injection pain and anxiety during local anaesthesia in paediatric dental patients: a study protocol for a randomised controlled clinical trial

INTRODUCTION: A current non-pharmacological mean for attaining painless local anaesthesia (LA) is presented by vibrotactile devices. Their concept is to reduce injection pain due to distraction by applying physical stimuli which interfere with pain signals. The aim of this study is to determine the efficacy of the DentalVibe (DV) device in reducing pain and anxiety associated with LA in paediatric patients. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: The proposed study is a randomised controlled clinical trial with split-mouth design. Included are positive patients aged 8–12 years, requiring buccal infiltration for extraction of two bilateral primary maxillary molars. After dental fear measurement, eligible patients undergo two single-visit treatments with DV device allocated to either first or second LA via computer-generated randomisation sequence. Outcome measures will be self-reported pain felt during LA on Visual Analogue Scale; self-reported anxiety on Facial Image Scale; pain-related behaviour according to Faces, Legs, Activity, Cry, Consolability Scale; heart rate; patient preference to LA technique. Data will be analysed with intention-to-treat concept by Student’s t-test for paired samples, Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p<0.05. Pretest on 20 subjects resulted in n=41 patients sample size. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: This study protocol has been approved by the Committee for Scientific Research Ethics, Medical University - Plovdiv, Bulgaria (Reference number P-8604, Protocol of approval No. 6/23.11.2017) and registered on a publicly accessible database. This research received institutional funding from the Medical University - Plovdiv, Bulgaria, under project SPD-03/2017. Findings will be reported in scientific publications and at research conferences, and in project summary papers for participants. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT03445182; Pre-results.