LAUSR

BACKGROUND Dental anxiety is a common issue among adolescents. Despite the use of smartphones being an important part of their daily lives, only a few digital-based interventions for dental anxiety have been tested in randomized controlled trials (RCT). AIM To evaluate a new smartphone application (App) named FALE, which was designed to demonstrate interest from the dentist to adolescent and to reduce dental anxiety. DESIGN This is a RCT in which 184 adolescents aged 10 to 19 years were randomly allocated into the intervention (IG) or control (CG) groups. The intervention was applied in the waiting room before the consultation at a dental clinic. The IG answered the FALE, which contained 14 questions - of which the first and last questions addressed anxiety, whereas the CG answered the question about anxiety twice with an interval between them. RESULTS There was a significant difference in the distribution of anxiety rating frequencies before and after the intervention period in both groups. For the intervenvtion group, there was a reduction of anxiety after the intervention of 16.29%, and, in the control group, a reduction of 2.2% (P-value<0.001). CONCLUSION The FALE App effectively reduced dental anxiety before the appointment.