Effect of Oral Midazolam Premedication on Children’s Co-operation Before General Anesthesia in Pediatric Dentistry

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM Premedication is expedient in reducing the psychological trauma from recalling the unpleasant pre-anesthetic phases, hence, inducing a trouble-free anesthesia. PURPOSE This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of oral midazolam in co-operation of the subjects before general anesthesia and in recalling the pre-anesthetic phases, performed on children candidate for dental treatment under general anesthesia. MATERIALS AND METHOD In this prospective clinical trial study, 62 healthy non-cooperative children, candidate for dental treatment under general anesthesia, were randomly divided into study and control groups. The children received 20ml orange juice, 20 minutes before starting the anesthesia. The juice of the test group contained 0.5mg/kg of midazolam and that of the control group included no medication. The induction and the maintenance process of anesthesia were similar in both groups. The manner of subjects when separated from parents, their cooperation during intravenous catheterization, and recalling the pre-anesthetic events were recorded. Data were analyzed by adopting chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests. RESULTS Most of the children in the test group had a comfortable separation from parents, restful IV catheterization and 90% of the subjects did not recall the pre-anesthetic events. CONCLUSION Under the circumstances of this study, it could be concluded that 0.5mg/kg oral midazolam premedication is effective for comfortable separation of children from parents and restful IV catheterization and also forgetting the pre-anesthetic events.