Behavior Management Techniques Adopted by Pediatric Dentists in Egypt

Abstract Background: Dental treatment exposes the patients to an environment that may trigger natural response of fear, leading to difficulties in accepting treatment or even dental avoidance. The study aimed to identify the most common behavior management techniques (BMT) adopted by pediatric dentist in Egypt for managing uncooperative children. Methods: Questionnaires were hand delivered to pediatric dentists, which designed to record participants demographic and practice information, their current use of BMT, to determine the most common behavior management techniques used for each patient age; and their relationship to practitioner gender, total year in practice and position in the faculty. Results: Surveys were returned by 72 pediatric dentists (27.8% were males and 72.2% were females). Parental presence was practiced by all participants mainly for patients less than 2 years (93.1%). Tell-show-do was considered the most used technique (95.8%) for patients 3-5 years. Their employment of advanced techniques by respondents was less than basic techniques, being least for sedation and highest for general anesthesia mainly for the very young patients (73.2%). Conclusions: Presence of parents at the operatory became imperative for patients less than two years to gain their cooperation, unless general anesthesia will be used for them.