Assessing children's dental anxiety: a systematic review of current measures

Abstract

The reliable assessment of children's dental anxiety can have many benefits for the dental team, service providers and dental public health practitioners. This study aimed to identify and evaluate self-report measures, which are available to assess children's dental anxiety. Systematic searches of the literature between 1998 and 2011 were conducted to identify relevant studies. The properties of each measure (reliability and validity) were assessed, and measures were evaluated against a theoretical framework of dental anxiety. Executing the search strategy generated 498 articles and of these 60 studies met all of the inclusion criteria. Seven 'trait' and two 'state' measures of dental anxiety had been employed to assess children's dental anxiety over the past decade. Reliability and validity estimates for the most widely used measures were good; however, many questionnaires had a limited focus in the aspects of anxiety they assessed. The paper summarizes the measures of children's dental anxiety which may be most useful for a number of different purposes and populations.

Dental Caries Is Associated with Dental Fear in Childhood: Findings from a Birth Cohort Study

“…The variability in results could reflect the diversity of the studied populations, considering differences in cultural aspects [Ten Berge et al, 2002;Klingberg and Broberg, 2007], age of subjects evaluated Berge et al, 2002]. Among the several dental fear or dental anxiety measurements available [Porritt et al, 2013], the DAQ employed in this study is considered a simple method of evaluating dental fear in children, with only one item presenting validity and reliability [Neverlien, 1990;Armfield et al, 2009]. Similar to other studies [Armfield et al, 2009;Luoto et al, 2009Luoto et al, , 2010, the children whose mothers answered the question with the response 'a little' were categorized as 'without fear', considering that low levels of this feeling (fear) are compatible with the normal development of children [Klingberg and Broberg, 2007] and may be insufficient to interfere with dental treatment [Ten Berge et al, 2002;Nuttall et al, 2008].…”

Management of fear and anxiety in the dental clinic: a review

“…There are several instruments which are freely available for this purpose, useable for both adults and children. [41][42][43] For example, the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS) contains five items, is reliable, and is quick to administer. 44 Another scale, the Index of Dental Anxiety and Fear (IDAF-4C + ), contains an eight-item module measuring the physiological, cognitive, emotional and behavioural components of dental fear and an additional 10-item stimulus module designed to assess possible areas of specific concern.…”

Evidence of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions for the management of dental fear in paediatric dentistry: a systematic review protocol

“…DFA has been identified as a common and significant problem in children and adolescents, with a mean prevalence ranging between 10% and 20%, being particularly high in the earliest ages. 2 Failure to attend dental clinics is considered the major consequence to DFA. 3 4 There is general agreement that the aetiology for dental anxiety is multifactorial, hence is difficult to propose a single therapy for its management.…”