Attitudes to dental care among parents of uncooperative vs. cooperative child dental patients

Abstract

The aim of this cross-sectional questionnaire study was to investigate four aspects of parents' attitudes to dental care (knowledge, child's oral health behavior, priorities and responsibility). One study group (n = 50) of parents of uncooperative child dental patients (aged 8-12 yr) was compared to a reference group (n = 113) of parents of ordinary child dental patients of similar age, and to a second study group (n = 36) of parents of uncooperative younger child patients (aged 4-7 yr). Study group parents had significantly lower socio-economic status and a higher level of dental fear as compared to parents of ordinary child patients. We found indications of a poorer dental knowledge and a differing responsibility-taking profile among study group parents. Their children also had sweets more often. As compared to parents of younger children, the older study group parents had lower socio-economic status and showed a lower responsibility-taking related to the child's treatment refusal. In conclusion, parents of uncooperative children differ from parents of ordinary child dental patients, not only in socio-economic status and dental fear, but also in aspects such as dental knowledge and responsibility-taking. These differences were partly related to the child's age.

Fear of dental pain in Italian children: child personality traits and parental dental fear

“…The significant relationship between child general anxiety and dental fear and anxiety is consistent with the fact that anxiety, as a personal characteristic, is usually positively correlated with higher levels of anxiety about a specific situation . Moreover, in keeping with several studies that used established and validated measures, the results showed a significant positive relationship between parental and child dental fear . Precisely, our study, observing an Italian population, shows that the best predictor of child dental anxiety is parents’ dental fear rather than relatively stable temperaments of the child.…”

The effect of mothers past dental experience on the behaviour of some Nigerian children during dental treatment

“…During examination majority of the children (92.5%) with positive maternal experiences complied while 68% of whose mothers had previous traumatic dental experiences exhibited good behaviour. These findings corroborates those of Shaw (1975), Klingberg et al, (1995) and Arnrup (2002).…”

“…Observations by researchers have revealed that children with high dental anxiety had mothers who had previous negative dental experiences and were scared of dental treatment (Shaw, 1975, Klingberg et al, 1995, Arnrup et al, 2002. Literature investigating the relationship of mothers past dental experience to the behaviour of their children in the dental setting in Nigeria appears to be rather scarce.…”

Knowledge and Responsibility of the Parents Toward Child’s Oral Health: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…This is due to the unawareness that fluoride has high importance in enamel protection. A similar result is also obtained from a study performed in Sweden [3]. This study has reported that poor attitude and dental knowledge of parents toward oral health of infants and young children are associated with increased caries prevalence.…”