Paediatric dental emergencies: a retrospective study and a proposal for definition and guidelines including pain management

Aim This was primarily to perform a retrospective analysis of 1000 emergency dental visits in order to characterize the nature of the dental emergency and the treatment provided and secondly to define a guideline for dental emergency treatment in children including pain management. Materials and methods A retrospective review was conducted of 1000 patients (aged 0–16 years) who visited the dental emergency service of the paediatric dental clinic at the Ghent University Hospital, Belgium over a period of 3 years. Data regarding age, gender, reason for visit, year of visit, consequent appointments and treatment provided were collected. Statistical analysis was carried out using descriptive statistics (frequency distribution) and Chi-square test, with significance level set as P