Pediatric Dental Fear

Dental agoraphobia is an ongoing dilemma between both dentists and patients. Children show fear, distress, struggle and anxiety during oral treatment because of dental agoraphobia. The traditional forced treatment by pressure can cause many adverse effects on children’s physical and mental health. For children who can not cooperate with the treatment, developed countries in Europe and the United States as early as more than 50 years ago began to use general anesthesia under oral treatment, not only can greatly reduce the negative impact on the physical and mental health of children, but also to improve the treatment and efficiency of the diagnosis and treatment. According to the latest survey results of the Health Planning Commission, China’s 5-year-old children’s caries rate of more than 60%, while the untreated rate reached 90%, is at a higher level in the world, China’s children’s milk teeth there is a high rate of dental caries, while the low rate of diagnosis and treatment of the problem. Relevant data show that 50.9% of adult dental squeamish patients because of childhood had a bad dental experience. Children are in a critical period of growth and development, and have less understanding of dental treatment and less control over their own behavior, so their fear of dental treatment is higher than that of adults. Children’s fear of dental treatment includes the following: (1) Fear of the unknown: fear of unfamiliar treatment environment, unfamiliar doctors, unfamiliar treatment process, etc. (2) Fear of helplessness: Most children feel a sense of loss of control when lying in the treatment chair, especially when the child is tied directly to the chair during mandatory treatment, which deepens the child’s sense of helplessness. (3) Fear of pain: children with dental agoraphobia have increased sensitivity and decreased tolerance to pain during treatment, so a little bit of pain during treatment will be magnified, which will have a negative impact on the children’s psychology and lead to the children’s inability to cooperate with the treatment. How to reduce the impact of dental phobia on children is a problem that the majority of dentists need to face.