A Survey of Trust toward Dental Staff among Adolescent

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the trust adolescents have in dentists and dental staff in the course of dental procedures. A total of 490 adolescents (225 males,265 females) fifteen to eighteen years old attending a private tutoring school in Hiroshima were surveyed.
To develop our Dental Belief Survey -Japanese Edition-Revised (DBS-JR), we improved the Dental Belief Survey (DBS) by adding 10 items to the original 15 items and two dimensions (“environment and reception by dental staff”and “informed consent”) to the original four. Our DBS-JR measured the degree to which patients perceive the behavior of dentists and dental staff as causing or contributing to fear of dental treatment.
The questionnaire consisted of the DBS-JR and several questions about dental experience, dental trust, oral condition, dental anxiety, and dental fear. The results were as follows:
1. The high reliability of DBS-JR was clearly evidenced by Cronbach's alpha which measured internal consistency. Its validity was confirmed by a correlation coefficient and t-test.
2. The items related to low trust were “reception by dental staff in the waiting room” and “informed consent about treatment methods and fees”. The dimensions related to low trust were “environment and reception by dental staff” and “informed consent”.
3. Males, subjects with poor oral condition, those with high dental anxiety and those with high dental fear displayed lower dental trust than females, those with good oral condition, low anxiety and low fear. No significant difference was found between those with dental experience versus the without group. These results suggest that the Dental Belief Survey-Japanese Edition-Revised will be helpful in studying adolescents.