Dental Fear of Children and Its Relationship with Caries Experience

The aim of this study was to assess dental fear and its relationship with demographic information and dental caries experience in 6 to 12-year-old children residing in Urmia city in 2020.

In this cross-sectional study, 185 children referred to the Pediatrics Department of Alborz Dental Clinic were included. The Children's Fear Survey Schedule-Dental Subscale (CFSS-DS) was used to evaluate dental fear experience of children. Demographic characteristics including sex, gender, parents’ educational level and birth order were also recorded. Intraoral examination was performed by a pedodontist, and dental caries experience was recorded based on the DMFT index. The data were analyzed by the Chi-square and logistic regression test using SPSS version 16.0.

Of 185 children, 83 were boys and 102 were girls; 136 participants had no dental fear while 49 had dental fear. The prevalence of dental fear was 26.48%. There were significant correlations between children's age (P=0.006) and birth order (P= 0.007) with their dental fear. But there was no significant correlation between gender or father’s educational level with dental fear experience (P=0.812), or dmft/DMFT index (P=0.128). Also, dental injection (71%) and drilling (49%) followed by the noise of drilling (45%) caused the highest mean fear among children.

The findings of the present study suggest that dental fear experience is probably not correlated with caries experience in 6 to 12-year-old children