PREPARING THE YOUNG CHILD FOR A PAINFUL PROCEDURE: THE DENTAL INJECTION.
Contributors: University of California, San Francisco.
Published: 1984
Number of pages: 172
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Dentistry.
Description: This study investigated children's pain-distress reactions to a noxious stimulus. Children's perceptions and beliefs about pain are cognitively different from adults. The young child's thinking (3-7 years) in the Piagetian preoperational stage of development is dominated by magical thought, egocentricity, and reasoning from limited experiences. The major question addressed was: Does preparatory sensory information reduce children's pain-distress reactions to a dental injection?.

This experimental, descriptive study was based on manipulation of preparatory sensory information with 58 children (3 to 7 years) and their families. Children were randomly assigned to three information groups: visual/verbal, verbal, and control. The pain-distress reactions to the injection were assessed by verbal report, observations, and physiological measures. Analysis of variance and covariance were used to determine if one group experienced less pain-distress reactions than another.

The findings indicated that there were no differences between experimental groups; however, on the average the total sample had low pain-distress reaction scores. Descriptive analysis indicated that 98% of the children had each step of the injection described as a "tell, show, do" method by the dentist. Thus, there were no longer three experimental groups but only one group which received preparatory sensory information in a concrete, visual, and verbal manner. Other findings suggest that use of a skilled practitioner with technical skill and knowledge of growth and development and the use of topical anesthesia may have clinical significance in reducing pain-distress reactions in young children.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-02, Section: B, page: 0513.

Thesis (D.N.S.)--UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO, 1984.

School code: 0034.