Effect of audiovisual eyeglasses during local anesthesia injections in 5- to 8-year-old children

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of audiovisual (AV) eyeglasses on pain reduction during local anesthetic injection in children who are 5 to 8 years old. Method and Materials: Forty-nine healthy, cooperative children with bilateral carious molars requiring treatment under local anesthesia were recruited in this crossover study. Treatments were done in two visits, 1 to 4 weeks apart. Subjects were randomly divided into two groups according to the sequence of AV eyeglasses used. Group I received the injection without wearing AV eyeglasses in the first visit and then wearing AV eyeglasses in a second visit. Group II was vice versa. Self-reporting pain using the Faces Pain Scale-Revised (FPS-R), face, legs, activity, crying, and consolability scale (FLACC), and heart rate (HR), were measured to assess the injection pain. Results: No significant differences in sex (P = .132) and treatment arch (P = .779) were observed between the two groups using a chi-square test at P .05. There were no significant differences in age (P = .341, t test at P ≤ .05) and previous dental experience (P = .19, Fisher's exact test at P ≤ .05) between the two groups. Pain scores were lower when the patients had their injection while wearing AV eyeglasses in both groups. No subject reported a maximum score on the pain rating scale when wearing AV eyeglasses, while 14% of the subjects reported so when not wearing the eyeglasses. AV eyeglasses significantly reduced FLACC scores (P = .03) and HR (P = .005) when compared with not wearing the eyeglasses (Mann-Whitney U test at P ≤ .05). Conclusion: AV eyeglasses successfully reduced pain, physical distress, and HR during local anesthesia injection. Keywords: audiovisual eyeglasses, dental treatment in children, distraction technique, local anesthesia injection