Page 31 - SPEMD_62-3

Revista Portuguesa de Estomatologia,
Medicina Dentária e Cirurgia Maxilofacial

rev port estomatol med dent cir maxilofac. 2021;62(3):157-162

Original Research

Moderate and high dental fear by sex and age using
the Children’s Fear Survey Schedule‑Dental Subscale

1
1
1,
Natália Medeiros Andrade , Isla Camilla Carvalho Laureano * , Lunna Farias ,
2
1
Liege Helena Freitas Fernandes , Cibele da Cruz Prates , Alessandro Leite Cavalcanti
1
1 Departament of Dentistry, School of Dentistry, State University of Paraíba, Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brazil.
2 Departament of Dentistry, School of Dentistry, State University of Paraíba, Araruna, Paraíba, Brazil.
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Objective: To assess the relationship between the Children’s Fear Survey Schedule-Dental
Received 17 December 2020 Subscale (CFSS-DS) questionnaire’s items and sex and age in children with moderate and
Accepted 30 June 2021 high dental fear levels.
Available online 19 August 2021 Methods: Cross-sectional study carried out in a municipality in the Northeastern region of
Brazil with 185 children aged 8-10 years of both sexes, who had a minimum score of 32 on
Keywords: the CFSS-DS questionnaire, corresponding to dental fear. Descriptive statistical analysis and
Child the Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Mann-Whitney U, and Kruskal-Wallis tests were performed. The
Dental anxiety significance level adopted was 5%.
Dentistry Results: Most children were female (59.5%) and 9 years old (37.3%). The average of the total
Epidemiology CFSS-DS score was 40.44 ± 6.81 (with a minimum of 32 and a maximum of 75). According to
Oral health the CFSS-DS, 53.5% of children had high dental fear. Items “Injections,” “Having a stranger
Pediatric dentistry touch you,” “The dentist drilling,” “Having somebody put instruments in your mouth,” “Chok-
ing,” and “Having to go to the hospital” had the highest median values. A significant differ-
ence was observed between ages for the item “Having a stranger touch you” (p=0.001).
Conclusion: The item “Having a stranger touch you” in the CFSS-DS questionnaire showed a
statistically significant difference with age, while no differences were found regarding sex.
(Rev Port Estomatol Med Dent Cir Maxilofac. 2021;62(3):157-162)
© 2021 Sociedade Portuguesa de Estomatologia e Medicina Dentária.
Published by SPEMD. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: carvalhoisla@gmail.com (Isla Camilla Carvalho Laureano).
http://doi.org/10.24873/j.rpemd.2021.08.841
1646-2890/© 2021 Sociedade Portuguesa de Estomatologia e Medicina Dentária. Published by SPEMD.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).