Researchrticle
A Novel Scale to Assess Parental Satisfaction of Dental Local
Anesthetic Techniques in Children: A Cross-Sectional Study
Muaaz Alkhouli , Zuhair Al-Nerabieah , and Mayssoon Dashash
Pediatric Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, Damascus University, Damascus, Syria
Correspondence should be addressed to Muaaz Alkhouli; muaaz4.alkhouli@damascusuniversity.edu.sy
Received 31 January 2023; Revised 5 May 2023; Accepted 11 May 2023; Published 19 May 2023
Academic Editor: Sivakumar Nuvvula
Copyright © 2023 Muaaz Alkhouli et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution
License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly
cited.
Background. Pain control is one of the most important aspects that can afect parental satisfaction of the dental care provided for
children. Dental local anesthesia has the highest impact on pain sensation of the children. However, there is no scale in the
literature to assess parental satisfaction of dental local anesthetic techniques. Objectives. Tis study was aimed to assess the
parental satisfaction with dental local anesthetic techniques for their children through designing a scale that refects satisfaction
and to study the validity and reliability of this scale. Methods. A cross•sectional observational study was conducted on 150 parents
(102 mothers and 48 fathers). Two techniques of local anesthesia were used for each child participated in this study (inferior
alveolar nerve block and computerized intraosseous anesthesia). Te developed scale consisted of 20 items in a 5•point Likert
scale. Half of the items were written in a negative format. Internal consistency, validity, and factor analysis were performed in this
study. Independent t•test was used to compare between the two techniques of anesthesia, between boys and girls and among
fathers and mothers. Results. Parental satisfaction mean values were higher in the computerized intraosseous anesthesia group in
comparison to inferior alveolar nerve block (P value <0.05). Te T•test showed that there was no diference between boys and girls
regarding parental satisfaction (P value >0.05). Furthermore, fathers show lower satisfaction in the computerized interosseous
anesthesia group (P value <0.05). Excellent internal consistency of this scale was resulted as Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefcient
was 0.985. After factor analysis, seven factor components were retained by using varimax rotation. Conclusions. Findings of this
study reported that the designed parental satisfaction of dental local anesthetic techniques scale (PSLAS) is a valid and reliable
scale to be used. Moreover, this study showed that parental satisfaction was higher when computerized intraosseous anesthesia
was used in comparison to inferior alveolar nerve block.
1.Introduction
Dental local anesthesia (DLA) has an essential role in the
success of dental procedures as it enables the practitioners to
make immense therapeutic advances by controlling the pain
caused [1]. However, DLA administration itself may also
induce anxiety and pain due to several factors, including the
unique characteristics of mucosal tissues, injection speed,
and needle insertion depth [2–4].
Additionally, DLA is associated with systemic and local
complications, including hematoma, edema, paresthesia,
aphthous ulcers, facial paralysis, trismus, diplopia, soft tissue
injuries, dose toxicity, allergy, and methemoglobinemia [5–8].
Consequently, the development of pain•free, non•
complicated local anesthetic techniques that induce patient
relaxation during dental procedures is crucial for achieving
patient satisfaction [9].
Patient satisfaction is a widely used index to measure the
quality in healthcare, and analyzing patient satisfaction
surveys has become a key method for obtaining patient
feedback on local anesthetic techniques used in dentistry
[10]. Tis can help in getting attention about the need to
advance new local anesthetic delivery systems and tech•
niques in the dental daily practice [11, 12]. However, most
studies assessing patient satisfaction with dental local an•
esthesia have focused on adult patients and used
Hindawi
Pain Research and Management
Volume 2023, Article ID 9973749, 9 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2023/9973749