Children’s Perception of Dentists through the Interpretation of Drawings

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the perceptions of students aged 05-12 years about dentists through the interpretation of drawings. Material and Methods: This is a crosssectional study whose sample consisted of 1015 children aged 5-12 years from 10 public schools of Salvador, Brazil. The students produced drawings about their main idea associated with the dentist and answered a semi-structured interview consisting of seven items. Results: Males (521 volunteers -51.3%) were more prevalent than females (494 volunteers, 48.6%), 688 (67.7%) children had experienced dental care, and need for treatment was the reason for seeking dental care to 306 (30.1%) of them. In describing the professional using one word, positive words totaled 805 (79.1%) responses, negative words accounted for 24 (2.2%) and 186 (18.3%) participants could not answer. The drawing category that had the largest number of volunteers was "Procedures", with 238 (23.4%) drawings, followed by: "Dental Consultation" with 228 (22.4%), "Other Professionals" with 174 (17.1%), "Dentist" with 115 (11.3%), "Oral Health" with 71 (6.9%), "Miscellaneous" with 71 (6.9%), "Dental Office" with 55 (5.4%), "Mouth" with 36 (3.5%) and "Pain / Fear" with 27 (2.6%). Conclusion: Drawings were effective in representing the particular vision of students and showed a plurality and complexity of concepts and ideas related to the dentist. In addition to procedures and consultation, professional behavior, knowledge transmitted to patients, physical environment and experienced sensations, factors linked to the origin of the main idea about the professional were also relevant. The perception of volunteers was positive both in the drawings as in the responses of the semi-structured interview.

Social Representations of Children in Relation to the Image of the Dentis

“…It is noteworthy that a small number of children reported fear in relation to the dentist. Most Studies have shown that negative perceptions regarding the image of the dentist are usually not related to the person, but rather to anxiety about the instrumentation or procedure used during curative treatments, as well as to previous pain experiences [5,7,20,23,28,29].…”

“…Since fear and anxiety may be present in dental treatment, it would be interesting for every child to know the dentist in a situation of low potential for pain, involving oral health education techniques, with preventive and humanized approach. This type of measure allows the child to have a positive experience, so that the child identifies the dentist as a trustworthy person and feels more secure when he / she has to undergo some invasive procedure [3,8,20,22,[31][32][33][34].…”

Behavior of Children Submitted to Tooth Extraction: Influence of Maternal and Child Psychosocial Characteristics

“…Dental procedures have also been presented as predictors of child's behavior [1]. In a previous study [20], it was possible to observe, through drawings made by children, a plurality and complexity of concepts and ideas. The "procedures" category was the one that most received drawings and was directly associated with tooth extraction and oral surgery.…”

Translation and Cross-Cultural Adaptation of the “Child Drawing: Hospital” (CD:H) Scale for Paediatric Dentistry in Brazil

“…In Paediatric dentistry, drawings are a valuable tool to better understand children's emotions and expectations about the dental environment [6]. It has been effective in identifying the presence of stress and dental anxiety during dental treatment [7], the occurrence of negative dental experiences during dental care [6], as well as the perception in relation to the professional and the dental environment [2,6,8,9].…”