Children and adolescents with severe dental fear often come from families with a turbulent background, according to a new Swedish study. The research, carried out at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, found it was also more common for these children to have had counselling contact with a psychologist.
Annika Gustafsson, specialist in child dentistry, studied children and adolescents of school age who had received specialist dental care because they developed cavities and also suffered from severe dental fear.
She said, 'I wanted to investigate how children and adolescents with dental behaviour management problems who received specialist dental care differed from patients of the same age within ordinary dental care. I also wanted to discover why they cancel appointments and fail to attend appointments more often.'
Just over 250 children and adolescents with dental behaviour management problems and their parents completed questionnaires describing their family situation and everyday life. Their answers were compared with answers from the same number of patients within ordinary dental care.
According to Dr Gustafsson, the children and adolescents with dental behaviour management problems suffered significantly more from dental fear, and they lived in families with lower social class and poor economy. Most often, they lived in single-parent families, had fewer leisure activities and more psychosocial problems than patients within ordinary dental care.
Their parents, in turn, stated that they also suffered from severe dental fear and had greater problems with anxiety and worry than parents of children and adolescents within ordinary dental care.
'We must also become better at discovering at an early age which children and adolescents need help and support. We should collaborate more closely with the social services,' said Dr Gustafsson.
