Dental fear in an urban Swedish child population: prevalence and concomitant factors

Abstract

In order to establish normative data on the dental subscale of children's fear survey schedule (CFSS-DS), measuring child dental fear, and to study the influence of general fears, parental fears and socio-economic correlates on children's dental fear levels, a questionnaire was sent to parents of a representative sample of 4,505 children aged 4-6, and 9-11-years-old in Göteborg, Sweden. The questionnaire contained the CFSS-DS, a short form of the CFSS measuring general fears, Corah's dental anxiety scale (DAS) (measuring parents' dental fear) and specific questions on parents' employment and the native language in the family. A total of 3,204 responses was received. The overall mean score on CFSS-DS was 23.1, and 6.7 per cent of the children were found to be fearful. Dental fear decreased with increasing age and was positively correlated to general fears. Three variables: age, general fears and maternal dental fear, were found to have a significant impact on the variance of CFSS-DS.