A study comparing articaine and lidocaine reports a relative risk (RR) of 3.1, p < 0.001, with a 95% confidence interval. What can be concluded?

An RR of 3.1 (greater than 1) favoring articaine, combined with a p-value well below the conventional 0.05 significance threshold, indicates a statistically significant finding that articaine was associated with substantially higher odds/relative risk of the favorable outcome compared to lidocaine — supporting the conclusion that articaine was more effective in this study.