The correlation between mother’s emotional maturation with children’s anxiety during routine dental procedures

The level of anxiety in 3-6 year old children when receiving dental care, is effective in compliance of the patients and the quality of the received care. The behavior and level of anxiety of children may be associated with their mothers’ psychological status. In this study, the relationship between the mothers’ emotional maturation and the anxiety and behavior of 3-6-year-old children during routine dental treatments was investigated. The current investigation was a cross section-descriptive study. Seventy patients aged 3-6 years old referring to pediatric dentistry ward of Tabriz dental school in 2015 were studied. In selection of the children, the age and lack of previous dental encounter was considered. The patients’ anxiety during dental treatment was assessed by evaluating the child’s behavior by venham scale utilizing frankel index.
Before initiation of dental treatment, questionnaires regarding emotional maturation and PTSD was filled by the mothers. At the end, the relationship between mothers’ emotional maturation and the child’s behavior and anxiety was analyzed by Pearson correlation coefficient test with 0.05 significance level under SPSS 16 software. The current study revealed two main findings. Firstly, the mothers’ emotional maturity did not have a statistically significant relationship with child’s behavior in dental environment. Also the mother’s emotional maturation did not have a statistically significant relationship with child’s anxiety in dental environment. The emotional maturation of mothers was generally at normal level and there does not seem to be a direct relationship between mothers’ level of emotional maturity and child’s behavior and anxiety in the dental environment.