Does a Smartphone Dental Game with Maternal Presence Enhance Cooperation of Patients in Paediatric Dentistry: A Clinical Study of Four Behaviour Modification Techniques

Introduction: Paediatric patients feel anxious and apprehensive at their first dental visit because of fear of the unknown. Behaviour modification techniques involving pre-exposure to dental equipment will give children a first-hand experience of their use, sounds, and clinical effects. Making the child patient play a smartphone dental game (Tell Play Do/TPD) helps to introduce dental procedures and equipment in an interactive manner, which acts as a distraction technique. Along with this, parental presence may give a sense of safety to the child, making them less apprehensive. Methods: In this pilot study, four different behaviour modification techniques were compared in children with Frankl's negative or definitely negative rated behaviour. Forty children in the age group of 4-5 years, visiting a dentist for the first time, and requiring pit & fissure restorations were randomly divided equally into Group A (Tell Show Do/TSD), Group B (TSD + Parental Presence), Group C (TPD), and Group D (TPD + Parental Presence) by chit method. Behaviour was assessed using RMS-PS6 (Raghavendra M sethi, M Khandelwal, S Rath- Pictorial scale) and FLACC7 (Face, Legs, Activity, Cry, Consolability) scale during treatment. The RMS-PS value of 1 to 3 and FLACC value of 0 to 1 were recorded as acceptable behaviour. Results: In groups A, B, C, and D, acceptable RMS-PS values were scored as 40%, 60%, 60% and 80%, respectively, whereas acceptable FLACC values in groups A, B, C, and D were scored as 20%, 40%, 40% and 60%, respectively. Both scales showed comparable results in all groups, but group D showed the best results. Keywords: Tell-Show-Do, Tell-Play-Do, parental presence, smartphone dental game