. 2025 Aug 22;15:30839. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-16658-2

Table 3.

Descriptive statistics of levels of spontaneous and chewing pain during 0.019*0.025 NiTi and 0.019*0.025 SS archwires in the three groups along with p-values of significance testing.

0.019*0.025 NiTi
Time	Group	N	Spontaneous pain				Chewing pain
			Mean (SD)	P-value*	Pairwise comparisons ^§		Mean (SD)	P-value*	Pairwise comparisons^§
			Mean (SD)	P-value*	Pair	P-value^†	Mean (SD)	P-value*	Pair	P-value^†
h0	Laser	17	0.6 (0.6)	0.499			0.8 (0.8)	0.333
	Drug	17	0.8 (0.9)				0.8 (1)
	Control	17	1.2 (1.4)				1.5 (1.4)
1 h	Laser	17	0.9 (1)	0.138			1.4 (0.9)	0.183
	Drug	17	0.9 (1.1)				1.4 (1.7)
	Control	17	1.8 (1.5)				2.2 (1.8)
24 h	Laser	17	1.6 (1.5)	0.007	Laser vs. Drug	0.049	2.5 (1.9)	0.045	Laser vs. Drug	0.062
	Drug	17	0.7 (1.2)		Laser vs. Control	0.005	1.4 (1.8)		Laser vs. Control	0.012
	Control	17	2.8 (2.2)		Drug vs. Control	0.131	3.1 (2.2)		Drug vs. Control	0.586
48 h	Laser	17	1.5 (1.5)	0.019	Laser vs. Drug	0.053	2.1 (2)	0.042	Laser vs. Drug	0.073
	Drug	17	0.5 (1)		Laser vs. Control	0.015	0.9 (1.4)		Laser vs. Control	0.015
	Control	17	2.5 (2.5)		Drug vs. Control	0.322	2.7 (2.3)		Drug vs. Control	0.496
1 week	Laser	17	0.2 (0.5)	0.056			0.5 (0.8)	0.192
	Drug	17	0.2 (0.6)				0.4 (0.7)
	Control	17	1.1 (1.4)				1.2 (1.5)
Next visit	Laser	17	0.1 (0.2)	0.128			0.1 (0.5)	0.307
	Drug	17	0.1 (0.3)				0.2 (0.5)
	Control	17	0.5 (0.9)				0.5 (0.9)

0.019*0.025 SS
Time	Group	N	Spontaneous pain				Chewing pain
			Mean (SD)	P-value*	Pairwise comparisons ^§		Mean (SD)	P-value*	Pairwise comparisons^§
			Mean (SD)	P-value*	Pair	P-value^†	Mean (SD)	P-value*	Pair	P-value^†
h0	Laser	17	0.4 (0.6)	0.055			0.5 (0.8)	0.390
	Drug	17	0.7 (0.7)				1.1 (1.1)
	Control	17	1.2 (1.2)				1.4 (1.2)
1 h	Laser	17	0.7 (0.8)	0.260			0.8 (0.7)	0.090
	Drug	17	0.9 (0.9)				1.5 (1.3)
	Control	17	1.7 (1.2)				2.2 (1.3)
24 h	Laser	17	0.5 (0.7)	0.007	Laser vs. Drug	0.218	0.9 (1)	0.015	Laser vs. Drug	0.182
	Drug	17	1.1 (1.1)		Laser vs. Control	0.003	1.6 (1.3)		Laser vs. Control	0.006
	Control	17	2.4 (2.3)		Drug vs. Control	0.053	2.9 (2.4)		Drug vs. Control	0.099
48 h	Laser	17	0.5 (0.9)	0.021	Laser vs. Drug	0.865	0.8 (0.8)	0.042	Laser vs. Drug	0.786
	Drug	17	0.5 (0.9)		Laser vs. Control	0.014	0.9 (1.3)		Laser vs. Control	0.007
	Control	17	1.9 (1.9)		Drug vs. Control	0.034	2.3 (2.1)		Drug vs. Control	0.231
1 week	Laser	17	0.4 (0.8)	0.330			0.2 (0.6)	0.420
	Drug	17	0.2 (0.7)				0.5 (0.9)
	Control	17	1 (1.4)				1.3 (1.6)
Next visit	Laser	17	0.0 (0)	0.190			0.1 (0.2)	0.060
	Drug	17	0.1 (0.2)				0.1 (0.2)
	Control	17	0.7 (1.7)				0.8 (1.8)

* Kruskal-Wallis test was applied; †: Mann-Whitney U test was used for pairwise comparisons; §: pairwise comparisons were applied when a significant difference was found between the groups in general; level of significance was set at 0.05 and Bonferroni’s correction was applied for post-hoc tests (i.e., adjusted α = 0.016); N: number of patients; h0: immediately after activation.