title: Prevalence of dental anxiety among 5- to 8-year-old Taiwanese children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Many people experience discomfort to a greater or lesser degree about the prospect of dental treatment. Dental treatment can be a terrible experience, especially for children with dental anxiety. This study estimated the prevalence of dental anxiety among 5- to 8-year-old children in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Children's Fear Survey Schedule-Dental Subscale (CFSS-DS) was translated into Chinese, and a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was made based on criteria determined from pretest clinical observations of a sample population to set a cutoff score. Then, the parental CFSS-DS was used as a screening tool to survey the dental anxiety levels of 5- to 8-year-old children at kindergartens and elementary schools in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. Participants were selected by stratified random sampling. The stratification was done by geographic district, age group, and sex. A total of 3,597 valid questionnaires were collected.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The Chinese version of the CFSS-DS had an optimal cutoff score of 38/39 (sensitivity was 0.857, specificity was 0.882) with an area under the ROC curve of 0.912. The estimated prevalence of dental anxiety among 5- to 8-year-old children in Kaohsiung City was 20.6 percent. The dental anxiety score was found to decrease as age increased; primary school boys had significantly lower scores.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The prevalence of dental anxiety was found to be high for 5- to 8-year-old Taiwanese children. The study's findings point to the urgent need for preventive health education and intervention programs in Taiwan to promote children's oral health and reduce dental anxiety.
authors: Graduate Institute of Dental Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, R.O.C.
authors: Chen-Yi
authors: CY
authors: Lee
authors: Yong-Yuan
authors: YY
authors: Chang
authors: Shun-Te
authors: ST
authors: Huang
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D016854:Dental Anxiety / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008347:Manifest Anxiety Scale; D015995:Prevalence; D012372:ROC Curve; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology