The use of bitewing positioning devices in children's dentistry.

The use of film-holding, beam-aiming devices have been shown to have a number of potential advantages in achieving high quality bitweing radiographs, however, little information is available about their acceptability to children. The aims of this study were: (1) to determine the level of acceptance of a conventional type of film positioner to child patients in a general practice setting in Scotland and (2) to compare the acceptability to children of bitewing procedures using: the freehand technique, a 'Rinn' positioner and a new positioner, the 'HPL' device. In the general practice group, following modifications made during a pilot study, 211 children aged 3-15 years were offered a bitewing examination with a modified Rinn positioner at recall. The overall acceptance rate of the bitewing procedure was 82.5%. All 10 children aged 3-4 years offered bitewings refused, while 77 (69%) of subjects aged 5-9 years accepted, as did all the 89 children aged 10-15 years. In the comparison of acceptability investigation, three groups of 30 children aged 6-15 years requiring bitewing radiographs were selected at random. Each group had a different bitewing technique carried out by the same operator. The children's acceptance of all three techniques was high (87-97%) and no statistically significant difference was found between the acceptability of the freehand method and those involving film positioning devices. Although the unmodified Rinn design suffered from a number of problems, the modified version was found to be acceptable by many children.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)