Findings
phobia or avoidance behaviors, psychiatric, phobic anxiety, anxiety
DISORDERS
The general finding of this pilot study is that all study participants succeeded in collaborating in the clinical examinations, despite their history of noncompliance. This finding applies only to the specific subgroup of individuals, that is, the study population of referred pediatric patients with anticipatory anxiety and situational fear that undergo clinical examination by a new dentist. It is uncertain how the findings can be extrapolated to other individuals with anticipatory anxiety and situational fear undergoing different interventions. Adults with dental anxiety and fear may include both individuals with previous unpleasant or painful experiences in the dental chair, with self‐reported poor oral health, or with injection phobia or avoidance behaviors, and even with different psychiatric disorders, including trait anxiety and phobic anxiety (Strøm et al., A potential criticism of the current trial is that the study participants did not receive any operative interventions beyond a clinical examination. The explanation is that there were no reports of dog‐assisted trials in pediatric dental settings in 2016 when the current trial was planned. It seemed logical that a first step would be to assess the study participant's behavior while conducting a repeatable intervention, that is, a routine clinical intraoral examination. It is important that referred pediatric patients with anticipatory anxiety and situational fear undergo a first‐time clinical examination by a clinician in a timely and calm manner. Such conditions likely enable more referred patients to be examined within set time frames and resource settings.Future trials should address the possible benefits of dog assistance not only during clinical examinations but also in particular treatment situations. There is still only very limited data on this study domain (Charowski et al., 