Dental Anxiety and Periodontal Health

Anxiety is a neurotic syndrome in which patients have difficulty in explaining internal restlessness, anxiety and fear reaching the level of panic, which causes physiological and behavioral disorders as a result of affecting motor tension and even autonomic hyperactivity. Anxiety and fear are frequently encountered in dentistry clinical practice in both adults and children. Dental anxiety is also defined as intense fear and anxiety that occurs as a result of the thought that patients will be harmed, that they will have an unknown operation outside their control, and because they have had previous negative dental treatment experiences.

Direct factors such as previous traumatic dental experiences, postoperative complications, age, gender, anxious temperament in childhood, and indirect factors such as the effect of family on the approach to dental treatment and sociodemographic factors have been reported to have an effect on the development of dental anxiety. Most early school-age children begin to imitate their parents as role models. Children in this age group internalize their mothers' values, attitudes and behaviors, since they usually spend more time with their mothers. It is thought that especially parents' dental anxiety may have an effect on their children's dental anxiety through modeling and knowledge.

Children with dental anxiety try every way to avoid dental treatment. The thought that patients will feel more pain than normal due to the anxiety they experience during dental treatments makes treatment difficult. Anxiety might lead to individuals discontinuing treatment, thereby worsening their dental health. As a result, necessary dental treatment becomes more time-consuming, invasive, and costly. At the same time, treatment anxiety impedes the clinical process, jeopardizes treatment results, and causes professional stress for dentists.

Dental anxiety is evaluated through projective tests, behavioral assessments, psychometric assessments, and physiological techniques. Behavioral assessment is based on the dentist or researchers scoring the behaviors visually. For this purpose, the Frankl Behavior Scale and the Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale are used. Psychometric assessments are made with questionnaires, which are the most preferred because of their ease of application, and these are used to measure the anxiety of children or adults before dental treatment. At the present time, the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS) is frequently used for adults, while the Children's Fear Survey Schedule-Dental Subscale (CFSS-DS) is used for children. Projective techniques also use pictures or narratives of objects that may cause anxiety and fear in young children. The Venham Picture Test (VPT) and Children's Dental Fear Picture Test are commonly used projective techniques. Physiological techniques measure anxiety-related parameters such as salivary cortisol level, blood pressure, and dorsal skin response. However, it is thought that the equipment used in this technique may increase anxiety, especially in children.

From a review of literature it can be seen that there are few studies conducted in Turkey which have evaluated the effect of the mother on the child's dental anxiety and oral hygiene. The aim of this study was to determine the effects of mothers' dental anxiety and oral hygiene on the dental anxiety and periodontal health of their children, using psychometric analysis and projective methods.