Abstract
The purpose of the present investigation was to discover the relationship among growth, dental fear and experience of dental injection in child patients. The subjects were comprised of 58 uncooperative and 121 cooperative child patients aged 5 to 12 years. They underwent regular dental examination at The Pediatric Dental Clinic of Niigata University Dental Hospital. For all of the subjects, the Dental Sub-scale of Children's Fear Survey Schedule (CFSS-DS) was conducted by mail. Inquires were then made into their experience of dental injection base on dental charts. The results were as follows.
1. The subjects were divided into 4 groups according to their age(the low-age group: from 5 to 8years or the high-age group from 9 to 12 years old) and their behavior (the uncooperative group: Frankl's scores 1,2 or the cooperative group: Frankl's scores 3,4) during dental treatment. In the low-age uncooperative and cooperative groups, the mean scores of the CFSS-DS were 31.3 and 24.8points, respectively. In the high-age uncooperative and cooperative groups, they were 32.5 and 22.8points, respectively.
2. In the cooperative groups, the mean CFSS-DS score of each item in the low-age group was less than that in the high-age group. In contrast to this, in the uncooperative groups, there was little difference between the scores of the low-age and high-age groups.
3. Distribution of the CFSS-DS scores showed a difference between the uncooperative and cooperative groups. In the uncooperative and cooperative groups, the largest number of patients were included in the CFSS-DS scores with 25 to 34 points and 15 to 24 points, respectively. There were, however, some patients who scored more than 35 in the cooperative group or less than 24 points in the uncooperative group.
4. In the high-age uncooperative group, the mean CFSS-DS score of the patients, who had not experienced of dental injection during the past year, was 39.4 points. It was statistically higher than that of the patients with such experience. In the other three groups, there were no differences between the patients with or without experiences.
The results of the present investigation show that experience of dental injection and psychological growth of child patients affect their dental fear and cooperative behavior. Therefore, to allay dental fear of patients in childhood, dentists should be aware of their patients' dental history and behavior during dental treatment in the past and take their behavior management problems into consideration.
