Dental treatments, care, and services (the decision context): Pain as a factor of choice
- Population
- (Potential) patients with freedom of choice regarding dental treatments, including parents and caregivers deciding for children or elderly; patients with special needs excluded
- Intervention
- Dental treatments, care, and services (the decision context)
- Comparison
- Not specified
- Outcome
- Pain as a factor of choice
Pain was identified as a factor of choice in 49 articles.
What each review found
Current versions only| Finding | Effect | Studies | GRADE certainty |
|---|---|---|---|
Dental treatments including dental care and services Pain as a factor of choice · Potential patients in dental care, including parents or caregivers making treatment decisions; excludes patients with… · 49 countries; varied dental, health-care, educational, and private settings Pain was identified as a factor of choice in 49 articles. Decision-making regarding dental treatments - What factors matter from patients' perspective? A systematic… (2025) All outcomes | Number of articles identifying factor 49 | 49 studies | GRADE not reported |
Findings are shown side by side, never pooled across reviews.
The reviews
| Review | Searched up to | Included studies | AMSTAR 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Decision-making regarding dental treatments - What factors matter from patients' perspective? A systematic review. 2025 All outcomes | 2007 to January 2021 (initial search 2007 to 2018; update search 2019 to January 2021) | 128 | Not applicable |
Related questions
The same intervention and outcome, asked in another population or against another comparator.
- Dental treatments, care, and services (the decision context) vs No comparator · (Potential) patients with freedom of choice regarding dental treatments, including… · 1 review
Studies behind the findings
The primary studies the full-text reviews tie to this outcome. Reviews with headline outcomes only do not list them here.
- The effect of pain intensity levels and clinical symptoms on the treatment preferences of patients with endodontically involved teeth: A… · 2020 · included by 1 of these review
- Treatment Preferences for Toothache among Working Poor Canadians · 2015 · included by 1 of these review
- Combine or separate future pain? The impact of current pain on decisions about future dental treatments. · 2013 · included by 1 of these review
How reviews are matched to this question
Reviews word the same question differently. Four decision models (TypeSafe's Jev, Liquid AI's d1-ultra, SubQ Snap and Baseten's Elephant) judged each wording of the population, intervention, comparator and outcome against the others; two wordings count as the same when at least three of them agree and none clearly disagrees, and findings count as this question only when all four elements match. Timing, setting and subgroup never split a question: they are shown on each finding.