To document current practices of pediatric dentists regarding the use of local anesthesia by epidemiological questionnaires, hoping to provide theoretical basis for the use of local anesthesia in children.

Questionnaires of the use of local anesthesia were conducted among 527 pediatric dentists randomly selected with different academic qualification and working conditions from China during September 2018 and February 2019 and the data which could affect the choice of the injection technique of local anesthesia was statistically analyzed using Fisher exact test.

Among 449 pediatric dentists, the percentage of using articaine [50.78% (228/449) ] was significantly higher than that of mepivacaine [26.06% (117/449) ] and lidocaine [22.05% (99/449) ]. The choice of the injection technique of local anesthesia was related to dentists′ academic qualification (χ² = 10.867, P = 0.045) and working experience (χ² = 11.755, P = 0.029) . The dentists who believed that infiltration anesthesia had poor effect in mandibular posterior teeth were 82% (367/449) . 56% (251/449) of dentists chose periodontal ligament injection as the supplementary anesthesia for treatment, The opinion that there were no complications of local anesthesia was held by 6.68% (30/449) of the dentists, and 93.32% (419/449) of the dentists lacked of sufficient knowledge of the complications.

Articaine and infiltration anesthesia the most commonly used local anesthetics and injection technique in the clinical practice of pediatric dentistry respectively. As a supplementary anesthesia, the use rate of periodontal ligament injection is at a high level. However, due to lacking adequate attention of the safety of local anesthesia, pediatric dentists should have intensive learning to promote the safety of local anesthesia.