The Relationship Between 6 to 8 year Oldchildren's dental fear and their parents' fear

Subject Areas : Educational

shahrzad Javadinejad ¹ , Sanaz Tahmourespour ² , Davood Ghasemi ³ , Fatemeh Yazdi ⁴

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Received: 2017-10-17 Accepted : 2017-10-17 Published : 2014-02-20

Keywords: parents’ dental fear, children’s dental fear, child’s cooperation with dentist,

Abstract :

  This research was done with the aim of studying the relationship between 6-8 year old children’s dental fear and their parents' fear. The research method was correlation, and the statistical sample consisted of 107 children between 6 to 8 years old who referred to Islamic Azad Khorasgan University dental clinic, together with their parents in2010- 2011(1390-91s.c.) academicyear. The sampling method was purposeful. The measuring instruments included Children's' Fear Survey Schedule– Dental Subscale (CFSSS-DS) (Cutberth & Melamed 1982), for evaluating children's fear, the Modified Dental anxiety Scale(MDAS) ( Humphriset al., 1995) for evaluating parents' fear and Frankle Behavior Rating Scale (Frankleet al., 1962), for evaluating children’s behavior during dental procedures. The first and second questionnaires were filled by child's parents and the third one was filled by the dentist. The analysis of data was done by Pearson correlation coefficient, Spearman correlation coefficient and independent t. The findings showed that there was a direct significant correlation between children`s fear and their parents’ fear scores (P < 0.001) .There was also a negative significant correlation between CFSS-DS and Frankle Behavior Rating Scale (P < 0.001) . According to the results, among the 6 to 8 year old children, parents’ fear can affect their children’s dental fear and also the extent of child’s collaboration with the dentist .