Prevalence of dental fear and its relationship with primary dental caries in 7-year-old-children

BackgroundChild's dental fear has been reported as one of the reasons that increase, aggravate dental diseases and facilitate other oral diseases. This study is aimed to describe the type and prevalence of dental fear and to assess the relationship between cavities of primary teeth and dental fear in 7-year-old children at Phulam Primary School, Hanoi.MethodsThe sample comprised of 132 children aged 7 years. The questionnaire examined the profile of participants and assessed their dental fear using the Children's Fear Survey Schedule-Dental Subscale (CFSS-DS). Children have “dental fear” when the total CFSS-DS score is greater than or equal to 38. By contrast, those without dental fear gain the total point which is less than 38. After completing the questionnaire, a dental examination was undertaken according to the International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS).ResultsThe prevalence of dental fear was 34.85%. Fear scores were highest for “Dentist drilling” (2.92 ± 1.47) and “Injections” (2.87 ± 1.53). In the univariate analysis, the odds of girls having dental fear were approximately equal to boys (OR = 0.98, 95% CI = ?0.75-0.70). The odds of only children having dental fear were 1.6 times higher than others, but there were not significant. Dental fear was found to be no associated to sex, birth order and primary dental caries (p > 0.05).ConclusionOur findings demonstrated the status of 7-year-old children's dental fear at Phulam primary school, and found that primary dental caries had no correlation with child dental fear score.