{"doi":"10.17615/arm3-vx66","title":"A software‐based observational coding approach for evaluating paediatric dental pain, anxiety, and fear","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Dental practitioners desire non-pharmacological methods to alleviate anxiety, fear, and pain in children receiving dental care; high-quality evidence, however, is required to evaluate methods' efficacy. AIM: This study aimed to develop and validate an observation-based coding approach (paediatric dental pain, anxiety, and fear coding approach [PAFCA]) to evaluate non-pharmacological behavior management techniques for anxiety, fear, and pain. DESIGN: Objective (video-based) and subjective (self-reported) anxiety, fear, and pain data were collected from a pilot clinical trial evaluating animal-assisted therapy (AAT) in paediatric dentistry, in which 37 children aged 7-14 were assigned to AAT or control before dental treatment (restorations or extractions). A coding approach utilizing a codebook, a gold standard calibration video, and a user training guide was developed. Trained examiners coded the gold standard video for inter-rater agreement, and masked, calibrated examiners analyzed videos using the Noldus Observer XT software. RESULTS: A novel, software-based coding approach was developed, with moderately high inter-rater agreement. Using PAFCA, we found children reporting higher levels of pain, fear, and anxiety exhibited treatment-interfering behaviors, including crying/moaning, attempts to dislodge instruments, and more upper and lower body movements. CONCLUSION: PAFCA shows promise as a reliable tool for assessing anxiety, pain, and fear in behavioral research for paediatric dentistry.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2024,"id":503301,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9625,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":286533,"name":"Timothy J. Strauman","orcid":"0000-0002-0310-4505","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1066662,"name":"Eleanor Nanney","orcid":"0000-0002-2677-6072","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1278622,"name":"Allen Rapolla","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":366917,"name":"Eric A. Hodges","orcid":"0000-0002-4358-4398","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":525148,"name":"Kimon Divaris","orcid":"0000-0003-1290-7251","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":774099,"name":"Jeannie Ginnis","orcid":"0009-0000-2127-5212","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1278621,"name":"Olivia TumSuden","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":471682,"name":"Caroline M. Sawicki","orcid":"0000-0001-9295-9849","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":235205,"name":"Christina Graves","orcid":"0000-0002-7387-2462","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":603660,"name":"Jessica Lee","orcid":"0000-0001-5760-2692","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1278197,"name":"Raven Selden","orcid":"0009-0002-9914-8787","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1278623,"name":"Katelyn Cass","orcid":null,"position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":682552,"name":"Clare Bocklage","orcid":null,"position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":546000,"name":"Laura Anne Jacox","orcid":"0000-0003-1923-6825","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:10:27.781502Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}