Effect of the Tiny Dentist game on 4-10 years old children’s anxiety compared with Tell-Show-Do method: A clinical trial

Background: Tell-show-do is the gold standard for children's anxiety and behavior control. However, there are other techniques, including video games, which can also be efficient.Aim: To evaluate the effect of a dentistry smartphone game on children's anxiety on a treatment session using two scales in comparison with the conventional tell-show-do method.Design: In this randomized clinical trial, children were divided into two groups with coin-flipping. They were taken to the unit and the pulse-oximeter was attached to their fingers to measure their heart rate. Then the techniques were applied to them regarding their group. The intervention group played with the game instead of tell-show-do, which the comparison group received. The procedure was filmed except for the intervention phase. After treatment, children were asked about their tolerated pain with the Wong-Baker index. Finally, two pediatric dentistry professors evaluated recorded films for children's anxiety by the Venham scale.Results: A total of 85 children enrolled in the tell-show-do group and 58 in the game group. The game group marks were significantly (p≤0.001) lower than the tell-show-do group marks in mean Venham scale (1.25±0.74 vs 1.98±1.04), mean heart rate during treatment (105.22±8.22 vs 111.35±13.15), heart rate difference in the intervention phase (-16.43±20.06 vs 0.47±23.58) and heart rate difference in the injection phase (7.26±17.86 vs 22.24±18.05). The pre-injection heart rate data was not significant (p=0.11).Conclusion: It seems that the video game method has appropriate efficiency for anxiety control compared with the tell-show-do method. (IRCT.ir IRCT20190720044281N1).