Table 4.

Descriptive statistics of levels of spontaneous and chewing pain during 0.016*0.022 NiTi and 0.017*0.025 NiTi archwires in the three groups along with p-values of significance testing.

0.016*0.022 inch NiTi archwire
Time	Group	N	Spontaneous pain				Chewing pain
			Mean (SD)	P-value*	Pairwise comparisons §		Mean (SD)	P-value*	Pairwise comparisons§
					Pair	P-value†			Pair	P-value†
h0	Laser	17	0.7 (0.8)	0.327			0.9 (0.9)	0.550
	Drug	17	1.1 (0.8)				1.2 (1.2)
	Control	18	1.5 (2.0)				1.8 (2.1)
1 h	Laser	17	1.4 (1.6)	0.188			1.8 (1.6)	0.177
	Drug	17	1.2 (0.9)				1.8 (1.1)
	Control	18	2.4 (2.3)				3.2 (2.7)
24 h	Laser	17	2.2 (2.5)	0.017	Laser vs. Drug	0.245	3.1 (2.7)	0.033	Laser vs. Drug	0.231
	Drug	17	1.1 (0.9)		Laser vs. Control	0.003	1.9 (1.2)		Laser vs. Control	0.007
	Control	18	3.1 (2.2)		Drug vs. Control	0.184	3.8 (2.2)		Drug vs. Control	0.273
48 h	Laser	17	2.0 (2.6)	0.003	Laser vs. Drug	0.045	2.7 (3)	0.010	Laser vs. Drug	0.150
	Drug	17	0.5 (0.8)		Laser vs. Control	0.001	1.1 (1.1)		Laser vs. Control	0.001
	Control	18	2.7 (2.4)		Drug vs. Control	0.207	3.4 (2.4)		Drug vs. Control	0.232
1 week	Laser	17	0.9 (1.2)	0.349			1.8 (1.6)	0.254
	Drug	17	0.4 (0.6)				0.9 (1.2)
	Control	18	1.1 (1.9)				1.8 (2.2)
Next visit	Laser	17	0.0 (0.0)	0.130			0.2 (0.4)	0.486
	Drug	17	0.2 (0.4)				0.4 (0.6)
	Control	18	0.8 (1.5)				0.8 (1.8)

0.017*0.025 inch NiTi archwire
Time	Group	N	Spontaneous pain				Chewing pain
			Mean (SD)	P-value*	Pairwise comparisons §		Mean (SD)	P-value*	Pairwise comparisons§
					Pair	P-value†			Pair	P-value†
h0	Laser	17	0.4 (0.5)	0.161			0.6 (0.9)	0.183
	Drug	17	0.9 (1)				0.9 (1.4)
	Control	17	1.2 (1.6)				1.6 (1.8)
1 h	Laser	17	0.4 (1)	0.150			0.8 (1)	0.140
	Drug	17	0.9 (1)				1.2 (1.3)
	Control	17	1.7 (1.8)				2.1 (1.4)
24 h	Laser	17	0.6 (1.1)	0.017	Laser vs. Drug	0.131	0.8 (1.1)	0.004	Laser vs. Drug	0.357
	Drug	17	1.3 (1.4)		Laser vs. Control	0.005	1.5 (1.9)		Laser vs. Control	0.001
	Control	17	1.9 (1.6)		Drug vs. Control	0.259	2.4 (1.3)		Drug vs. Control	0.038
48 h	Laser	17	0.4 (0.8)	0.006	Laser vs. Drug	1	0.8 (1.2)	0.009	Laser vs. Drug	0.634
	Drug	17	0.4 (0.6)		Laser vs. Control	0.013	0.5 (0.8)		Laser vs. Control	0.005
	Control	17	1.3 (1.4)		Drug vs. Control	0.120	1.9 (1.5)		Drug vs. Control	0.038
1 week	Laser	17	0.4 (0.9)	0.106			0.6 (0.9)	0.170
	Drug	17	0.1 (0.3)				0.2 (0.4)
	Control	17	0.8 (1.6)				1.1 (1.3)
Next visit	Laser	17	0.0 (0)	0.364			0.0 (0)	0.151
	Drug	17	0.1 (0.2)				0.1 (0.2)
	Control	17	0.2 (0.5)				0.2 (0.6)

* 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.