title: Evaluation of the influence of parental anxiety on children's behavior and understanding children's dental anxiety after sequential dental visits.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Identifying anxiety levels of parents accompanying their children can help the clinician in designing the behavior management strategies for the child. In addition, continued dental experience can improve the child's response, indicating desensitization to dental stress.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the influence of parental anxiety on children's behavior and understanding children's dental anxiety after sequential dental visits.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 175 children of age 6-12 years, 98 were boys and 77 were girls, were randomly selected from various schools of Navi Mumbai. Parental dental anxiety was assessed using the Corah's dental anxiety scale (DAS), and child anxiety level was measured using children fear survey schedule-dental subscale (CFSS-DS).
  
  
  METHODS
  Pearson's correlation coefficient analysis, ANOVA, and Friedman test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There is a significant positive correlation (P < 0.0001) between DAS scores and CFSS-DS scores at all three dental visits. The mean ± standard deviation, CFSS-DS scores at the first, second, and third dental visits are (34.07 ± 11.97), (31.04 ± 10.94), and (27.26 ± 9.39), respectively, showing the score is more during the first dental visit than the second and third visits.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The dental anxiety levels in parents may influence the anxiety levels of children and also all children exhibited an improvement in the levels of dental anxiety from the first dental visit to the subsequent dental visits.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry, Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University Dental College and Hospital, Sector 7, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
authors.forename: Swapnali Dilip
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Shinde
authors.affiliation: Department of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry, Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University Dental College and Hospital, Sector 7, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
authors.forename: Rahul J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Hegde
mesh_terms: D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D016854:Dental Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D003887:Desensitization, Psychologic; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007171:Implosive Therapy; D007194:India; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires