Inhalation sedation in dentistry: Anesthesiologists vs dentists

Background and Aim

Inhalation sedation with nitrous oxide is a technique used with patients that present phobia and anxiety. Some professional collectives, such as anesthesiologists, have posed a debate about the use of said drug by dentists in their ongoing practice. Our aim is to find out what anesthesiologists think about the practice of inhalation sedation by dentists in the dental clinic and find out what experience anesthesiologists have with sedation on dental patients.

Methods

First, a literature review is conducted using Pubmed as the database and using the MeSH terms: "conscious sedation", "survey" and "anesthesiologist" between the years 2008 and 2020. Secondly, a 10-item survey is carried out based of the articles found that refer to the problem that anesthesiologists have with sedation done by a dentist in the dental clinic. This survey is sent to anesthesiologists of Catalonia and Balearic Islands.

Results

A total of 100 properly completed surveys are obtained. 45% of professionals had completed specialty less than 10 years ago,75% work in the public sector and 46% didn’t have any experience with general anesthesia of dental patients. 89% believe that dentists would not be able to handle an emergency situation during nitrous oxide sedation and 93% disagree about the minimum hours a dentist's training course requires to perform this sedation. Only 27% are in favor of choosing general anesthesia as the technique of choice with a patient with dental phobia.

Conclusions

Most anesthesiologists (69%) do not consider appropriate for dentists to administer sedation with nitrous oxide sedation. 70% of anesthesiologists have no experience with sedation of the dental patient.