Children’s Dental Anxiety during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Polish Experience

Abstract

Dental fear and anxiety is a significant issue that affects pediatric patients and creates challenges in oral health management. Considering that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, along with its associated sanitary regime, social distancing measures and nationwide quarantines, could itself induce public fears, including in children, it is of great interest to explore whether this situation and the necessity of reorganizing dental care could potentially affect the emotional state of pediatric patients facing a need for urgent dental intervention. The present study assessed the emotional state of children ≤ seven years old (n = 25) requiring dental healthcare during a nationwide quarantine in Poland, as well as the anxiety levels of their caregivers. The Faces Anxiety Scale was adopted, and the evaluation was independently performed by the dentist, caregivers and children themselves. The level of anxiety in caregivers was also measured. As demonstrated, children requiring dental intervention during the nationwide quarantine did not reveal a significantly higher anxiety level as compared to the age- and indication-matched pre-pandemic control group (n = 20), regardless of whether their emotional state was evaluated by the dentist, caregivers, or by themselves. However, the share of children scoring the lowest anxiety level in all assessments was smaller in the pandemic group. Boys in the pandemic group had a higher anxiety level, as indicated by a caregiver assessment, and displayed a negative correlation with age in all three types of evaluation. Moreover, caregiver anxiety levels were higher in the pandemic group as compared to the pre-pandemic subset and revealed stronger correlations with the dental anxiety in children. The results suggest that the reorganization of oral healthcare under the pandemic scenario did not have a profound effect on children’s dental anxiety. Nevertheless, findings in young boys highlight that they may be more vulnerable and require special care to mitigate their anxiety and decrease the risk of dentophobia in the future—these observations must be, however, treated with caution due to the small sample size and require further confirmation. Moreover, it is important to reassure caregivers of the safety of the dental visit during the pandemic to minimize the effect of their own anxiety on dental fears in children.

Medical students as the volunteer workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic: Polish experience

“…The outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in December 2019 that later turned into a pandemic has posed a tremendous challenge to different healthcare branches [ [1] , [2] , [3] ], and the immediate need to implement a sanitary regime and impose nationwide quarantines in a number of countries. This has led to a significant economic loss and a reorganized life for approximately 4 billion people under lockdown [ 4 , 5 ].…”

Dentistry 4.0 technologies applications for dentistry during COVID-19 pandemic

“…Now healthcare can improve quality with better problem identification using modern technologies. These provide appropriate real-time information with the help of connected sensors and other electronic devices [ 44 , 45 ]. New digital technologies are available to analyse various types of information during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Consideraciones para la elección de técnicas de manejo del comportamiento en niños durante la pandemia por la COVID-19

“…Todo ello afectará directamente en la relación con su odontólogo, quien tendrá que estar capacitado y preparado para manejar las distintas situaciones que se le presenten. Por este motivo, es importante conocer las Técnicas de Manejo del Comportamiento (TMC) disponibles, así como algunas alternativas que se podrían utilizar frente a esta pandemia 2 .…”