Acceptability of Intraoral Cameras and Smartphones in Children: A Clinical Trial

Aims: This trial assessed children’s acceptance of two teledentistry methods, intraoral cameras and smartphones, used for caries detection in rural settings. Methods: This randomized controlled clinical trial was conducted in nurseries in rural Egypt between December 2023 and May 2024. Ethical approvals and parental consents were secured before the study. The study included 400 children younger than six years who lived in villages. They were equally randomized into two groups: intraoral cameras and smartphones to detect caries. The child’s behaviour was observed when using the two methods and evaluated on a 5-point Likert scale to assess fear of the device, tendency to bite the device, difficulty in keeping the mouth open, and cooperation. The time of examination was measured in minutes. Comparisons between the groups were performed using Mann-Whitney test and significance was set at 5%. Results: The study included 400 children, mean (SD) age= 4.4 (1.1) years, 207 (51.8%) boys. The intraoral camera was slightly more feared than the smartphone (mean (SD)= 1.4 (0.8) and 1.3 (0.9), p = 0.04), triggered more tendency to be bitten (mean (SD)= 1.7 (1.2) and 1.3 (0.7), p < 0.001), and was associated with greater difficulty to keep the mouth open (mean (SD)= 2.2 (1.2) and 2.0 (1.3), p = 0.006). Cooperation levels were similar between the two devices (mean (SD)= 3.5 (1.3) and 3.6 (1.4), p = 0.47). The intraoral camera took 1.4 minute less to complete the photography process compared to smartphone (mean (SD)= 3.6 (1.5) and 5.0 (2.6), p < 0.001). Conclusions: Both methods were acceptable to children with no clinically significant differences in fear of the device, tendency to bite, difficulty keeping the mouth open or cooperation. Less time was needed to complete the photography using the intraoral camera compared to the smartphone. Future studies should explore accuracy and caregiver perspectives. Acknowledgments: Work supported by the Science, Technology & Innovation Funding Authority (STDF), Egypt, grant #47235.