Title

Comparative evaluation of behavior management techniques on anxiety levels in pediatric dental patients

Authors

Jaya Verma¹, Ankita Verma^2,*, Jayesh Anand³, Rishvee Prateek⁴, Harsh Priyank⁵, Asim Mustafa Khan⁶ & Haitham Ahmed Alhasan⁷

Affiliation

¹Department of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry, Project Research Scientist—2, ICMR- NIRBI, Kolkata, West Bengal, India; ²Department of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry, Hazaribagh College of Dental Sciences and Hospital, Jharkhand, India;  ³Department or Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Hazaribag college of dental sciences and Hospital, Jharkhand, India; ⁴Department of Prosthodontic and Implantogy, Hazaribag College of Dental Sciences and Hospital, Jharkhand, India; ⁵Department of Conservative, Endodontics and Aesthetic Dentistry, Dental Institute, RIMS, Ranchi, India; ⁶Department of Biomedical Dental Sciences, College of Dentistry, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Saudi Arabia;  ⁷Department of Dentistry, College of Dentistry, Dar Al Uloom University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; *Corresponding author

Email

Jaya Verma - E-mail: jverma7@gmail.com

Anika Verma - E-mail: ankitave@gmail.com

Jayesh Anand - E-mail: jayesh1508@gmail.com

Rishvee Prateek - E-mail: rishveeprateek@gmail.com

Harsh Priyank - E-mail: hpriyank@gmail.com

Asim Mustafa Khan - E-mail: amkomr@gmail.com

Haitham Ahmed Alhasan - E-mail: haithamalhassan@proton.me

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received June 1, 2026; Revised June 30, 2026; Accepted June 30, 2026, Published June 30, 2026

Abstract

Dental anxiety in pediatric patients significantly hinders effective treatment, posing a barrier to optimal dental care. Therefore, it is of interest to evaluate the effectiveness of various behavior management techniques (BMTs) in reducing anxiety during dental procedures in children. Four BMTs were compared: Positive reinforcement, distraction, nitrous oxide sedation and control. Data showed that nitrous oxide sedation was the most effective, followed by distraction, while positive reinforcement offered moderate success. Thus, we show the most effective techniques for managing dental anxiety in pediatric patients.

Keywords

Pediatric dentistry, anxiety management, behavior management techniques (BMTs), nitrous oxide (NO), distraction (D), positive reinforcement (PR)

Citation

Verma et al. Bioinformation 22(6): 3240-3244 (2026)

Edited by

Ritik Kashwani

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.