Evaluation of the effect of general anesthesia for dental work on learning ability in 7-10 years old children

Abstract

General anesthesia is used to control uncooperative children in dentistry; the impact of anesthesia on child learning is a concern. The frequency of anesthesia and the duration of it may influence the child's learning process. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of general anesthesia on children's learning.

Method and materials:

In this prospective clinical trial study, 36 healthy children aged 7 to 10 years who were candidates for dental work under general anesthesia were selected by simple sampling.

Before anesthesia and one week later, learning impairment score evaluated with LDES-R2 learning impairment assessment questionnaire, and the results were analyzed using paired t-test, Pearson correlation and independent t-test in SPSS 20 software.

Results:

The maximum score of learning disorder with LDES-R2 questionnaire is 246.

The mean score of learning disorder before anesthesia was 26.6 and the mean score one week after that was 38.1. Paired t-test showed a significant increase by 5% in learning impairment score (P <0.05).

Discussion:

Previous studies have shown disagreement about the effect of general anesthesia on learning ability, the number of anesthetic visits seems to be more important.

In this study, general anesthesia for dental work resulted in a 5% increase in the mean score of learning disabilities in children, since our assessment was performed one week after anesthesia and may still have anesthesia memory effects, which may be longer since anesthesia, the average score may be dropped below 5%.