Abstract
Background: The prevalence of dental anxiety among a representative sample of children in the UK was determined in the Children's Dental Health survey of 2003.
Aims: This paper is concerned with the extent to which children in the United Kingdom are judged by a parent or carer to be behaviourally affected by dental anxiety and the factors associated with this.
Method: The information was gathered by self-completion questionnaire distributed to the parents of half of the sample of children who were also clinically examined in the dental survey.
Results: Dental anxiety that was sufficient to disrupt dental attendance was reported for around 3-4% of the four age groups surveyed (5, 8, 12 and 15 years of age). Children's dental anxiety was associated with parental dental anxiety; a greater experience of invasive dental treatment and general anaesthetic; receipt of free school meals and social class.
Conclusions: Whilst these findings do not necessarily indicate causal relationships, they do confirm a number of co-factors associated with dental anxiety perhaps most importantly that of anxiety with the experience of general anaesthetic for tooth extractions. (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 857-860 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | Journal of Dentistry |
Volume | 36 |
Issue number | 11 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2008 |
Keywords
- Dental anxiety
- Children
- Dental survey
- ORAL-HEALTH
- FEAR