Reliability and validity of a faces version of the Modified Child Dental Anxiety Scale

Abstract

The MCDAS(f) is a reliable and valid measure of dental anxiety in children aged 8-12 years.

Evidence-based dentistry: analysis of dental anxiety scales for children

“…Seven of these scales were developed in the UK, [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] five in the USA [18][19][20][21][22] and two in Sweden. 23,24 To simplify the results, these scales were grouped into the observer-reported scales (five scales summarised in Table 1), and the self-reported scales (nine scales summarised in Table 2).…”

“…25 Not all of the 14 published scales have followed this guidance, for example the dental anxiety for 5-yearold children (DA5) 17 has been validated against similar scales which may affect the accuracy of the validity results. One of the scales (Visual Analogue Scale) 20 was validated against un-validated measures (Frankl and Houpt).…”

“…13 A new version of the modified child dental anxiety scale with faces (MCDASf) was formed by adding a five faces rating scale to the original numeric form. 17 Like all other existing scales, it includes only the most commonly feared items such as injection, drill and tooth extraction. There may be issues with how patients perceive the faces relate to their anxiety status, with evidence to suggest that face numbers 1, 2, and 3 may be seen as a relaxed response, while faces 4 and 5 an anxious response; 30 perhaps introducing bias in favour of a relaxed response when considering outcomes for MCDAS and MCDASf.…”

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

“…45 The scale compares favourably to other scales, is short enough to be used for effective screening of dental anxiety, and is flexible enough to allow additional investigation of specific concerns if that is deemed to be warranted. For children, special scales have been developed, such as the Modified Child Dental Anxiety Scale 46 and the Facial Image Scale, 47 which use graphical representations of smiling and frowning faces to measure child anxiety. However, even simple single-item questions such as the omnibus item from the Dental Fear Survey 25 ('All things considered, how fearful are you of having dental work done?')…”

Utilising a paediatric version of the indicator of sedation need for children’s dental care: a pilot study

“…Following this, each child participant was asked to complete an anxiety questionnaire. There were two anxiety questionnaires; the Facial Image Scale (FIS) (Buchanan and Niven 2002) was used for children under 10 years of age and the faces version of the Modified Child Dental Anxiety Scale (MCDASf) for older children (Howard and Freeman 2007). According to the score the patients achieved on the anxiety scale, the chief investigator calculated an "anxiety score" for each child and transferred this to the data collection sheet.…”