Dental anxiety of parents affects children's oral health

It is well established that oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) is negatively impacted by negative dental experiences. However, a new study suggests that the dental anxiety of parents may also affect the OHRQoL of children who have not had a negative dental experience.

Researcher Burak Çarıkçıoğlu of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University in Turkey analyzed the impact of parental dental anxiety on the OHRQoL of preschool children who not had reported a negative experience at the dentist. The findings were published on October 8 in a research paper in Archives de Pédiatrie.

The cross-sectional study included 412 parents of preschool children ages 4- to 6-years-old. Parents answered a questionnaire on sociodemographics, negative dental experiences and dental anxieties, and their perception of their children's OHRQoL. Children with negative dental experiences were not included.

"This study revealed that an increase in parental dental anxiety, as well as dental visits negatively, affected the OHRQoL of preschoolers without a negative dental experience," wrote Çarıkçıoğlu.

Parents with higher levels of dental anxiety assessed their children's OHRQoL poorly, the study found. This may be related to parents' perception that their anxiety also impacts their children. Previous studies have confirmed that high maternal dental anxiety negatively impacts the OHRQoL of preschoolers.

In this study, 4-year-old children had better OHRQoL than other age groups among parents with low dental anxiety. Çarıkçıoğlu speculates that this may be due to the increase in oral health issues with age.

Further, the sociodemographics of the children and their parents were not related to the significant differences in OHRQoL. However, a significant negative correlation between the child's OHRQoL and dental visits was observed.

Children's OHRQoL decreased as parents' dental anxiety levels increased. Increased parental dental anxiety may be due to their child's awareness of the need to visit the dentist because of increased oral health problems.

"As parents' dental anxiety levels increase, they may prevent themselves and their children from using dental services because children can visit the dentist with their parents," explained the researcher.

This study also found that the impact of parental dental anxiety on children's OHRQoL was based on the parents' reports. These reports provide information for studying young children who have challenges expressing feelings of pain as well as those who have not yet completed their emotional and cognitive development.

"A clear association could not be demonstrated between parental dental anxiety, sociodemographic factors, and the child's OHRQoL," Çarıkçıoğlu concluded. "However, dental anxiety impacted parental perception, wherein it had a greater effect on the OHRQoL of children with previous dental visits than those without."