title: Dental fear and anxiety in children and adolescents: qualitative study using YouTube.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Dental fear and anxiety (DFA) refers to the fear of and anxiety towards going to the dentist. It exists in a considerable proportion of children and adolescents and is a major dilemma in pediatric dental practice. As an Internet social medium with increasing popularity, the video-sharing website YouTube offers a useful data source for understanding health behaviors and perceptions of the public.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  Using YouTube as a platform, this qualitative study aimed to examine the manifestations, impacts, and origins of DFA in children and adolescents from the public's perspective.
  
  
  METHODS
  To retrieve relevant information, we searched YouTube using the keywords "dental fear", "dental anxiety", and "dental phobia". Videos in English expressing a layperson's views or experience on children's or adolescent's DFA were selected for this study. A video was excluded if it had poor audiovisual quality, was irrelevant, was pure advertisement or entertainment, or contained only the views of professionals. After the screen, we transcribed 27 videos involving 32 children and adolescents, which were reviewed by a panel of 3 investigators, including a layperson with no formal dental training. Inductive thematic analysis was applied for coding and interpreting the data.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The videos revealed multiple manifestations and impacts of DFA, including immediate physical reactions (eg, crying, screaming, and shivering), psychological responses (eg, worry, upset, panic, helplessness, insecurity, resentment, and hatred), and uncooperativeness in dental treatment. Testimonials from children, adolescents, and their parents suggested diverse origins of DFA, namely personal experience (eg, irregular dental visits and influence of parents or peers), dentists and dental auxiliaries (eg, bad manner, lack of clinical skills, and improper work ethic), dental settings (eg, dental chair and sounds), and dental procedures (eg, injections, pain, discomfort, and aesthetic concerns).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This qualitative study suggests that DFA in children and adolescents has multifaceted manifestations, impacts, and origins, some of which only became apparent when using Internet social media. Our findings support the value of infodemiological studies using Internet social media to gain a better understanding of health issues.
authors: Dental Public Health, Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China. gaoxl@hku.hk
authors: Xiaoli
authors: X
authors: Gao
authors: S H
authors: SH
authors: Hamzah
authors: Cynthia Kar Yung
authors: CK
authors: Yiu
authors: Colman
authors: C
authors: McGrath
authors: Nigel M
authors: NM
authors: King
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D016854:Dental Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D003729:Dental Care / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D036301:Qualitative Research; D061108:Social Media; D014741:Video Recording