Factors associated with children's fear and anxiety about dental practice: A review study

Children's fear and anxiety about receiving dental services is one of the major challenges in pediatric dentistry. This study was conducted to investigate the factors related to children's fear and anxiety about dental practices.

In this review study, we appraised related academic articles of resources in Google scholar, Scopus, pubmed and domestic databases including: SID (Scientific information database), and MagIran using the English keywords Fears, Dental fear, Anxiety, Dental Anxiety, Patient Anxiety, and using the MeSh browser between 2019-2020.

The age of children in the studies ranged from 3 to 17 years. Research environments in the researches were the pediatric clinic of dental schools, schools and private dental offices. The variables that were studied in most studies were gender, age and history of dental treatment. The highest number of studies was performed to assess children's fear using the Dental Subscale of the Children's Fear Survey Schedule (CFSS-DS). The main factors related to children's fear were age, role of parents, family attitude, experiences of others, history of dental treatment.

To promote children's oral health, it is necessary to identify the factors related to children's fear and anxiety about dental practices.