Changing Trends in Conscious Sedation at Pediatric Dental Offices: A Bibliometric Analysis

The uncooperative behavior of children in the dental office has increased the demand for pharmacological behavior management techniques. Moderate sedation is more effective by providing analgesia and anxiolysis, thereby aiding in carrying out the most comfortable, efficient, and high-quality dental services. There is a need to understand the various aspects such as the choice of drug, method of drug administration, safety, and efficacy. Bibliometrics can reveal significant shifts in research and publication trends. Therefore, this study aimed to perform a bibliometric analysis of the literature on evolving trends in conscious sedation at pediatric dental offices. The bibliometric research used RStudio 2021.09.0+351 for Windows (RStudio, Boston, MA), package "bibliometrix," and VOS viewer software (Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands. https://www.vosviewer.com). Elsevier's Scopus database (www.scopus.com) provided the literary data for this study, which were exported in BibTex format. The articles were independently categorized according to the following aspects: (a) annual scholarly output; (b) leading countries or regions; (c) leading journals; (d) productive authors; (e) citations; (f) study design; and (g) distribution of topics. The findings considered 1996 through 2022 and used journals, books, articles, and other sources, totaling 1064 papers, with an average of 10.7 per year. According to the findings, the United States, the United Kingdom, and India were principally leading the field of conscious sedation research. In total, 2433 authors were found through the search. The study identified the nations that are currently researching the topics such as midazolam and nitrous-oxide; this paves the way for future partnerships to strengthen the evidence generated in other topic areas using novel sedatives and exploring the different routes of drug administration, thereby benefiting the scientific community by identifying knowledge gaps and experts in this area of research.