New research reveals that interacting with a dog can reduce children’s pain perception, but other measures are less clear.

Let’s be honest, a trip to the dentist isn’t much fun at any age, but it’s critically important that children develop these good habits early on, to make sure that their teeth last a lifetime. Although sedatives are often the first line of defence when it comes to keeping children relaxed during dental procedures, they are not without their risks. For this reason, a recent study has tested the effect of a non-pharmacological intervention on children’s experience at the dentist — interacting with a therapy dog.

Therapy dogs are good natured dogs who have been temperament tested and certified, to enable them to visit vulnerable people where they provide comfort and reassurance. Previous research has already shown that therapy dogs are able to reduce anxiety and pain in children during medical procedures in hospital, but much less research has investigated their potential in the dental industry.

A study into dentist experience

The pilot study included 39 children, aged between 7-14 years, who needed invasive dental work, such as fillings. They were divided into two groups: one group interacted with a golden retriever for two minutes in a private room. The handler, who was a paediatric dentist, encouraged the children to stroke the dog, shake their paw, and to give her a treat. In the other group, the children coloured a picture of a dog or sat quietly.

The researchers, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, recorded a variety of physiological, behavioural and self-reported measures to capture the children’s levels of anxiety, fear and pain. These included heart rate, stress hormone levels, body language from video recordings, and validated questionnaires.

Puppy power, but also limitations

The results revealed that children who interacted with the therapy dog reported significantly less pain after the procedure, and their heart rate fluctuated less during it, than children in the control group. Children in the therapy dog condition also exhibited more relaxed behaviour whilst sitting in the dentist chair, overall suggesting that they found the experience to be more positive.

Although, no differences were observed in their stress hormone levels, or their fear and anxiety levels. Several explanations for this include that the saliva collection was itself a stressful event, that the sample was collected too soon, or that natural variation throughout the day was too much for the study’s small sample size.

Is the future of dentistry golden (retriever)?

The findings suggest that therapy dogs may positively enhance the dentist experience for children. Children who interacted with the dog prior to undergoing a procedure showed less physiological arousal, pain perception, and had more relaxed body language throughout, including fewer vocalisations like moaning. However, more research is needed to fully understand their effect on stress, anxiety and fear.

In an area where one bad experience can lead to a lifetime of fear and avoidance, therapy dogs offer an effective non-pharmacological alternative to sedatives. Future research should include a larger number of participants and use a randomised design. It would also be interesting to follow children throughout their life, to see whether these more positive experiences in childhood encouraged more regular visits in adulthood.

Key study findings:

• Therapy dogs reduced post-procedure pain in children
• The heart rate of children who interacted with a dog was more stable
• Those children also exhibited more relaxed behaviour
• No differences in fear or anxiety were observed
• No differences in stress hormones were revealed, perhaps due to the methodology used