KNOWLEDGE ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE ON ARTICAINE AS LOCAL ANAESTHETIC AGENT FOR PEDODONTIC PATIENTS

Abstract

Local anesthesia will be one in every of the foremost difficult aspects with pedodontic patients. Dentists ought to bear in mind of correct dosage throughout administration of anesthesia to attenuate the prospect of toxicity and prolonged anesthesia which may cause accidental trauma to lip, tongue, or soft tissue should be aware of proper dosage during administration of local anesthesia to minimize the chance of toxicity and prolonged anesthesia which can lead to accidental trauma to lip, tongue, or soft tissue.Articaine was the largest local anesthetic agent developed during the early 70s. However, the majority of the practitioners prefer using lidocaine over articaine in children and although its safety and efficacy has been proven and reported to be comparable or superior to lidocaine.The aim of the study is to know about the knowledge, attitude, and practice of the articaine as local anaesthetic agent for pedodonic patients. A cross-sectional questionnaire study was conducted among the dental students of Chennai. The sample size of 200 students was selected. A close-ended questionnaire was used to assess the practitioner’s perspective on tilted implants. Survey software was used to reduce sampling bias. Repeated answers or questioning were avoided. Chi-square tests are applied to find the association between the parameters and the level of significance. Out of 200 students, 62.5% were undergraduate students and only 37.% of the population were postgraduates. Most of the students (84%) used lidocaine as local anaesthesia followed by bupivacaine (11.5%) and articaine (4.5%). However 75.5% of the students were not aware that articaines are used for pedodontic patients because of its various advantages over other local anesthetics.77% of the students responded that they were not aware that articaine is 1.5 times more potent than lidocaine.65% were not aware that there is only minimal risk for systemic toxicity in articaine compared to other local anesthetic agents. Furthermore articaine can be used in patients with sulfa allergies also. Only a handful (6%) of the population had knowledge about this.Within the limitation of the study, we can conclude that dental students in the Chennai population were not much aware of the articaine as local anaesthetic agent for children in dentistry.