Dental experiments induced anxiety in 6-12 year old children and relative factors

Background and Objective: Control of stress in children during dental procedures is one of the first and the most important factors in successful treatment. The aim of this study was to determine stress and effective factors in children referred to pedodontics department of Babol dental faculty. Methods: This cross-sectional, descriptive and analytical study was performed on children aged between 6-12 years who referred to pedodontics department during 2002. Data were collected by the use of CFSS-DS questionnaire evaluated for validity and reliability via pilot study (0.9 and 0.85, respectively). Data were analyzed by the use of SPSS software. Findings: Among children, 55 were male (52.4%) and 50 were female (47.6%). The mean stress score among children was 25.4±12.9. No significant correlation was found between stress and background factors such as age, sex, parent educational status and job, history of referring to dentist, number of children in a family, birth order and parent’s stress score. In this study, 14 children (13.33%) had stress score more than 38, which mean that they had stress. Conclusion: The mean stress score and frequency of children with stress were less than other studies. Also, by increasing the age up to 11 years, the stress score had reduced in which could be due to psychologic growth and increased comprehension in children