Assessment of relationship between children's anxiety and behavior and emotional intelligence in dental setting

Abstract

This study was aimed to evaluate the relationship between childrens anxiousness and their total emotional quotient (teq). Methods and Materials: In this descriptive-correlation study, 100 children referring the pediatric department of the dental faculty of Tabriz University of medical sciences were selected according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. These children were assessed twice in two separate sessions. At the first session, after thorough examination of children, their treatment plan was determined and fluoride therapy was performed. Then, EQ-i:YV was given to them and the method of its completion was explained to children and their parents by a psychiatrit. At the second session, the local anesthesia was administrated at the deciduous maxillary molars and before treatment beginning , the childrens, anxiousness was assessed using venham scale by a psychiatrist. After that, the children s behavior was graded using frankels scale by the dentist himself. The spearmans correlation test was utilized for analysis of collected data using SPSS 15 statistical software. Results: Two important findings were obtained from this study. First, the findings revealed that there is a strong correlation between childrens cooperation and their total EQ (rs=0.73; P<0.001). Second, there is a strong revers correlation between childrens anxiousness index and their total EQ (rs=0.79; P<0.001). Conclusions: The level of childs total EQ affects his anxiousness and cooperation during dental care procedures and children with higher TEQ experience less anxiousness and cooperate more during dental treatments.