Factibilidad de la sedación consciente en pacientes pediátricos. Revisión bibliográfica.

Abstract

The fear that children may have of dental treatment generates behavior management problems for the dentist. This can become a barrier to the success of any dental therapy required by a pediatric patient. In some cases, it will be almost impossible for a child to collaborate with the dentist and receive the corresponding treatment. In these cases, conscious sedation can be used to relieve anxiety and control behavior in children undergoing dental treatment. The objective was to establish the feasibility of conscious sedation to perform dental treatments in uncooperative pediatric patients. The research had a qualitative approach, with a documentary design and followed the postulates of the exploratory systematic reviews. In total 15 articles were included for the review. These were published between 2012 and 2022. According to their design, the studies included were two systematic reviews without meta-analysis, one systematic review with meta-analysis, one cohort study, two cross-sectional studies, and one narrative review. There are different options for conscious sedation to perform dental treatments on uncooperative pediatric patients. These can be single or combined drugs and administered by different routes such as oral, intranasal, intravenous, rectal, intramuscular, submucosal, transmucosal or through inhalation sedation. Drugs include nitrous oxide/oxygen, propofol, ketamine, and midazolam. Clinical practice guidelines recommend the use of midazolam for conscious sedation.