The Perceived Impact of California Sedation Legislation on Clinical Practices in Pediatric Dentistry

Purpose: To assess California pediatric dentists' perspectives on Senate Bill 501 (SB 501) and its impact on sedation practice in pediatric dentistry. Methods: An electronic survey was delivered to all 818 members of the California Society of Pediatric Dentistry. The 18-question survey inquired about the participants' demographic information, sedation experience, and insights about the changes made by SB 501. Data were anal- yzed using frequency distribution and chi-squared analyses (P<0.05). Results: A total of 124 pediatric dentists responded to the survey (15.2% response; 78.7% had previously applied for a sedation permit, while 21.3% did not. Among the 96 respondents with a previous sedation permit, 83% reported that SB 501 impacted their practices. Additionally, 72.9% of the respondents with previous sedation experience hold an active permit, and 53.1% are currently using oral sedation in-office. The top barriers linked to SB 501 were the cost of hiring a second Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS)-certified support personnel dedicated to patient monitoring (34.5%), the requirement to complete 20 sedation cases for each age category to obtain pediatric endorsements (26.2%), other reasons (18.2%), application fees (15.5%), and continuing education requirements (3.6%). Conclusions: Based on these findings, new sedation permit regulations in California in 2022 have significantly impacted pediatric sedation practices. A marked decrease in sedation permit holders may lead to diminished access to care for pediatric patients. Many respondents urged the revision of this legislation to better support offering safe and effective sedation care.