Animal-Assisted Therapy in Dentistry: A Review

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Arş. Gör. BEGÜM MUTLU

Tez Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: İstanbul Üniversitesi, Diş Hekimliği Fakültesi, Klinik Bilimler Bölümü, Türkiye

Tez Danışmanı: Yelda Kasımoğlu

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2024

Tezin Dili: İngilizce

Özet:

Animal-assisted therapy (AAT) is considered a beneficial method to improve children’s and adolescents’ mental and physical health especially in medical settings. It is a recent phenomenon in dentistry as an advanced behavioral management technique to reduce anxiety. This review aims to investigate and summarize the use of AAT in dental care. Randomized and non-randomized clinical trials and questionnaire-based studies with individuals experiencing AAT in dental appointments are included in this review. Databases of Cochrane, Embase, Pubmed/Medline, Scopus, SpringerNature and Web of Science and gray literature were searched. Risk of bias was assessed using ROBINS-I and RoB2 tools. The main results indicate that AAT is an effective method in controlling anxiety in dental settings but further investigations and studies should be performed to determine definite results. Keywords: animal-assisted therapy; dental anxiety; dentistry; pediatric dentistry