Abstrakt

Salivary Cortisol Changes in Children During Simple Dental Procedures.

Vivek Padmanabhan, Kavita Rai, Amitha M Hegde

Dental environment may be a source of stress for young children. Such stressful conditions may provoke fear and anxiety in children. Therefore stress factor is high in children visiting dentists and this stress may increase or decrease in the subsequent visits that follow dependent upon to what they are exposed to. Cortisol, called also “stress hormone” participates in organismâÂ?Â?s response to stress situations and enters into complex interactions with the hormonal and immune system of a man.The salivary cortisol levels were investigated in 60 children who were divided into study and control groups respectively. The control group was not subjected to any treatment except for collection of saliva. Children belonging to the study group were subjected to dental scaling and the procedures were completed in three appointments. Saliva samples were collected from all the children during all the appointments. Salivary cortisol levels were evaluated using the ELISA kit supplied by Salimetrics. The results indicated that the salivary cortisol levels increased in the study group when compared to the control groups and within the study group the salivary cortisol levels in the second appointment were on a higher level when compared to the first and third appointments.