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

Medo odontológico moderado e elevado relacionado ao sexo e à idade
usando o Children’s Fear Survey Schedule‑Dental Subscale

r e s u m o

Palavras-chave: Objetivo: Avaliar a relação entre os itens do questionário Children’s Fear Survey Schedule-
Criança -Dental Subscale (CFSS-DS) e o sexo e a idade de crianças com níveis de medo odontológico
Ansiedade dentária moderado e elevado.
Odontologia Métodos: Estudo transversal, realizado em um município da região Nordeste do Brasil, com
Epidemiologia 185 crianças entre 8 e 10 anos, de ambos os sexos, que tiveram escore mínimo de 32 no
Saúde bucal questionário CFSS-DS, pontuação que configurava como com medo odontológico. Foi reali-
Dentista pediátrico zada a análise estatística descritiva, testes de Kolmogorov-Smirnov, U de Mann-Whitney e
de Kruskal-Wallis. O nível de significância adotado foi de 5%.
Resultados: A maioria das crianças era do sexo feminino (59,5%) e tinha 9 anos (37,3%). A
média do escore total do CFSS-DS foi de 40,44 ± 6,81 (com mínimo de 32 e máximo de 75).
De acordo com o CFSS-DS, 53,5% das crianças apresentaram elevado medo odontológico. Os
itens: “Anestesia”, “Uma pessoa que você não conhece encostar em você”, “Motorzinho do
dentista”, “Alguém colocar instrumentos na sua boca”, “Engasgar” e “Ter que ir para o hos-
pital” apresentaram os maiores valores de mediana. Houve diferença significativa entre as
crianças para o item “Uma pessoa que você não conhece encostar em você” (p=0,001).
Conclusão: O item “Uma pessoa que você não conhece encostar em você” do questionário
CFSS-DS apresentou diferença estatisticamente significante com a idade, não existindo
diferenças nos demais itens em relação ao sexo. (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/).

tors originate or trigger fear and aim to mitigate them through
Introduction
the implementation of appropriate behavior management tech-
7
Despite recent technological and scientific advances regard- niques. Children with dental fear should be identified in ad-
8
ing dental procedures, fear related to dental treatment still vance to reduce its consequences, since they are more likely
affects a large part of the population and seems to perpetuate to have uncooperative behaviors, causing treatment to be inter-
over the years. Dental fear is associated with a preconceived rupted or postponed and deterioration of oral hygiene. 9,10
1
notion that dental treatment will be painful, which can im- In order to better understand this condition, some research-
pair the child’s ability to deal with the office environment and ers have used the Children’s Fear Survey Schedule -Dental Sub-

lead dental treatment to failure. 2 scale (CFSS -DS),developed by Cuthbert and Melamed in 1982,11
The etiology of dental anxiety is complex and multifacto- as a tool to measure dental fear in children. 2,3,7,10,12 Besides
3
rial. Studies that assess the influence of demographic factors being used in different countries and having high reliability, the
have shown different results, which can be explained by dif- CFSS -DS questionnaire has a simple, fast, low -cost application
13
ferent research designs and data collection methods, in addi- to evaluate dental fear and anxiety. Moreover, as previously
tion to the culture, socioeconomic status, changes in the social reported, the safest method for identifying dental fear in chil-
14
environment, and dental care systems in each region. Thus, dren is through a self -report questionnaire since parents tend
15
normative data for each culture is necessary. 3 to exacerbate their children’s dental fear almost twice. There-
In the dental environment, the perception of danger that fore, this study aimed to assess the relationship between the
leads to fear can be associated with children who have never CFSS -DS questionnaire’s items and the sex and age of children
4
been to a dentist, the performance of anesthesia or other pro- with moderate and high dental fear levels.
cedure that could cause pain, the discomfort of keeping the
mouth open for an extended time, or a long and costly treat-
5
ment plan. Another aspect that can contribute to a patient’s Material and methods
anxiety is the patient -professional relationship because if the
child does not feel comfortable or does not trust the dentist, This research followed the recommendations of the Strength-
their levels of fear during treatment will probably increase. 6 ening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology
Dentists are in a unique position to assess patient comfort (STROBE) initiative for the communication of observational
and educate them about dental anxiety and its coping mecha- studies (available at: https://www.strobe -statement.org/index.
5
nisms. In addition, they have the ability to identify which fac- php?id=available -checklists). It is a cross -sectional study car-