Deep carious lesion management in vital primary teeth: approach and practice of dental practitioners in Jordan

Diverse treatment modalities are available for managing deep caries in primary dentition, with a growing interest in minimally invasive approaches. It remains unclear which treatment modality is applied by dentists in daily practice. This study aimed to explore the general dental practitioners' (GDP), and paediatric dentists' (PD) approaches to managing deep caries in primary molars.

An online questionnaire was distributed using the Google Form survey tool to dentists across Jordan. Descriptive data analysis was performed. Chi-square was used to analyse correlations (P < 0.05).

A total of 376 responses were analysed. Almost two-thirds of participants were GDPs (58.8%), 23.4% were PDs, 14.1% were paediatric PGs and 3.7% were academics. For asymptomatic teeth, indirect pulp capping (IPC) was the most opted treatment among all participants (N = 129; 34.3%) followed by the Hall technique (N = 70;18.6%). IPC and Hall techniques were significantly more selected by PDs (P < 0.001). For teeth with symptoms of reversible pulpitis, most participants preferred pulpotomy (N = 152; 40.4%), followed by IPC (N = 125; 33.2%). IPC was significantly more selected by PDs (P < 0.001). For teeth with symptoms of irreversible pulpitis, pulpotomy was preferred by most participants (N = 263; 69.9%).

The PD approach favours less invasive biologically based interventions for managing asymptomatic and reversibly inflamed primary molars. GDPs require further education on less invasive biologically based interventions.