Evaluation of Children’s Anxiety Level in Relation to a Dental Visit/Treatment and Their Parents’ Dental Fear

Abstract

The patients’ fear of the dentist plays an important role in the everyday life of a dentist. The anxiety level of children in relation to dental treatment/visits and to their parents’ dental fear was evaluated in three different centers. Assessments of a modified CFSS-DS (mCFSS-DS) were performed by questionnaire with 60 children and their parents. Children’s dmft/DMFT scores, age and gender were evaluated in relation to the parents’ perception of their child’s anxiety levels. For statistical evaluation, Kruskal–Wallis and Wilcoxon tests as well as Spearman’s correlation coefficient (Spearman) were used. The significance level was set at 0.05. There were no significant differences regarding children’s mCFSS-DS between the three centers (p = 0.398, Kruskal–Wallis). The parents’ mCFSS-DS scores correlated significantly with their children’s mCFSS-DS scores (p = 0.004, Spearman). However, the mean mCFSS-DS score of the children was significantly higher than the mean score of parents’ perception of their child’s anxiety (p = 0.000, Wilcoxon). The age of the child had an influence on the mCFSS-DS score (p = 0.02, Kruskal–Wallis) but neither the children’s gender (p = 0.170, Kruskal–Wallis), nor the dmft/DMFT showed an impact (p < 0.725, Spearman). Although a positive correlation was found between the results of the children’s and parents’ questionnaire, many parents underestimated the anxiety level of their children.

Keywords

• children
• anxiety
• CFSS-DS
• pediatric dentistry
• parents
• caries