Pediatric dental patients' attitudes to rubber dam

To explore young patients' experiences of rubber dam (RD) and determine how personal and clinical factors may influence opinions.

A self-completed questionnaire was developed to capture pediatric patients' experiences of treatment under RD in a hospital setting. Patients' acceptance of RD and perceptions of how well it was explained to them were recorded on a 10cm Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), where zero represented the most negative score. The following clinical variables were also recorded: type of RD; procedure undertaken; use of local anaesthetic and procedure duration.

One hundred children (52 male, 48 female) with a mean age of 11.8 years (SD = 2.29; range 7-17 years) participated Overall, acceptance of RD was satisfactory (mean VAS = 5.0). Patients were happy with the explanation of why RD was used (mean VAS = 7.7). The type of RD, use of local anaesthetic, procedure undertaken and duration of the procedure did not significantly influence acceptance levels. However RD was significantly less acceptable to patients who underwent radiographic examination whilst wearing the RD (P < 0.05, t-test). Nearly five times as many patients expressed concern at being seen wearing RD when taken to the radiography department (39.2%, n = 20/51), compared to those who were reportedly self-conscious about RD when treated only on the paediatric dentistry clinic (8.2%, n = 4/49).

The use of RD appears acceptable physically and psychologically to most pediatric patients, however visibility of the RD to others was a potential concern to some children.