BackgroundThere are few previous studies investigating the relationship of dental fear and anxiety (DFA) with dental pain among children and adolescents. To address this issue, we examined the literature published between November 1873 and May 2015 to evaluate the prevalence of DFA and dental pain among children and adolescents, and their relationships with age and sex.MethodsWe performed a broad search of the PubMed database using 3 combinations of the search terms dental fear, anxiety, and dental pain and prevalence. A large proportion of the identified articles could not be used for the review due to inadequate end points or measures, or because of poor study design. Thirty-two papers of acceptable quality were identified and reviewed.ResultsWe found that the prevalence of DFA was estimated to be 10%, with a decrease in prevalence with age. It was more frequently seen in girls, and was related to dental pain.ConclusionsWe concluded that dental fear, anxiety, and pain are common, and several psychological factors are associated with their development. In order to better understand these relationships, further clinical evaluations and studies are required.

BackgroundMany people experience varying levels of discomfort when confronted with the prospect of dental treatment. Dental treatment can be a traumatic experience, especially for children and adolescents with dental anxiety. In this age group, dental fear causes a significant problem in dental management and has been related to severe dental caries and dental pain. The Dental Fear Survey ( DFS ) is the most widely used measure of dental fear. This study was undertaken to develop the Korean version of the DFS ( K-DFS ) and test its reliability and validity.MethodsThe K-DFS, which uses projective techniques to measure children's and adolescents' dental fear, was developed. The DFS was translated into Korean and participants were selected via convenience sampling. Reliability and validity were tested using data from a sample of 813 middle school students in Gyeonggi Province, selected from the Self questionnaire survey. The K-DFS was administered twice to 102 adolescents aged 12-15 years.ResultsThe K-DFS had high internal consistency reliability (99.1%) but low test-retest reliability.ConclusionsThe results indicate that the Korean versions of the DFS have good internal consistency reliabilities and test-retest validities. However, we need to further examine the test-retest reliability of the K-DFS and replicate the current study in different samples covering various age groups.

This study aims to examine the level of fear and the influential factors affecting their dental fear and to utilize the result as the basic materials in the dental management. The subjects were the students from a middle school located in Cheongju-City. The school was selected by convenient sampling and self-answered questionnaire was filled in by the students for a week from December 19th 2011. The survey result showed that 77 male students and 169 female students(total 246 students) answered 'yes' to the question 'Have you ever felt fear when you visited a dentist?' among 475 students who had visited a dentist in the past. The distribution of responses in each category of fear was examined by frequency analysis. The study results showed significant difference in the item of 'causing irritation during the dental treatments' between male students and female students (p<0.05). Converting the level of fear into scores after marking the answers, the score of male students was 52.0 points and the score of female students was 58.53 showing the score of female students was significantly higher in statistics. Moreover, the fear score of female students for the category 'causing irritation during the dental treatments' was also significantly higher in statistics(p<0.05). Therefore, these results should be reflected to the dental care environments in order for the adolescent to reduce the dental anxiety and fear.

The objective of this study is to measure the fear and anxiety levels of some middle school students in Gyeonggi Province, to analyze the relevant factors, to seek how to alleviate such fear and anxiety and thus enable to make a comfortable and efficient oral management. Six hundred twenty two middle school students in Gyeonggi Province participated in the survey, which used the data of 614 respondents, i.e. 337 males and 277 females. A frequency analysis was conducted to determine the distribution of answers for each question, a crosstabulation analysis was performed to verify the gender differences in answer and an Mann-whitney U test was used to compare fear scores. According to the results patients feared even in unexpected circumstances. In addition, they feared when receiving direct treatment. In terms of gender, female students showed higher levels of fear than male ones (p<0.05).

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