Methods: 516 general dental practitioners attending postgraduate courses on pain control in dentistry completed a questionnaire. Participants were asked to indicate year and place of qualification, anaesthetic solutions available in their surgeries and criteria used in the choice of anaesthetic. Data were analysed with chi-square.
Results: 94% reported using lidocaine with epinephrine, the second most common solution was prilocaine with felypressin (74%). The majority of practitioners had two or more solutions available. The most reported in any surgery was 7 different solutions. Practitioners who qualified within the last 5 years were more likely to have articaine with epinephrine compared to those who graduated more than 5 years ago (chi square 4.17, p£0.05). The primary criterion for selection of anaesthetic was efficacy, followed by the nature of the procedure being undertaken. More experienced practitioners (>5years) were more likely to indicate price as a selection criteria compared to recent graduates (chi square 9.92, p£0.01).
Conclusions: Lidocaine with epinephrine was the most widely available solution among this group of practitioners. Articaine, the latest local anaesthetic introduced into the U.K. was more likely to be used by recent graduates.