Preschool children and dental caries as associated factors with dental fear and stress

Fear, anxiety, and stress are psychological characteristics inherent to human beings that can be attenuated in the face of different stimuli that involve adverse situations that are generally associated with family relationships, socioeconomic conditions, and quality of life, which includes dentistry and oral health. This study aimed to test the association between the oral condition and psychosocial aspects of children aged 4 to 12 years during dental care at the Pediatric Dentistry Clinic of the Faculty of Dentistry of the Federal University of Alfenas/MG (UNIFAL/MG). For this, the children underwent professional dental prophylaxis followed by a clinical examination, in which the professional assessed the oral health condition based on the dmft/DMFT index, observing the presence and severity of the disease. After that, the dentist used the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) to assess the children's anxiety, fear, and stress during care. The data were tabulated and analyzed using descriptive and bivariate statistics, using the IBM SPSS Statistics 22.0 software, with the Spearman correlation test, Mann-Whitney test, and Kruskal Wallis, considering 5% as a significance value. The correlations found a statistically significant association between the presence of cavities and the child's stress (P=0.03) and between age and fear (P=0.03). On the other hand, dental anxiety was not associated with oral condition or demographic aspects (P>0.05). It can be said that children who have caries lesions tend to be more stressed during dental care. Furthermore, preschool children are more afraid of the dentist compared to older children.