Comparison of the relation between age and temperament with dental behavior of children under 7 years old

Abstract

Temperament has been studied by numerous researchers and can be useful in the prediction of the childs reaction to the dental treatment especially in young children. Therefore, the goal of the present paper is to study the comparison of the relationship between the age and temperament and the child dentistry behavior. Materials and Methods: in this descriptive-analytical study, 190 children under the age of 7 who referred to the Tabriz Faculty of Dentistry participated. ECBQ evaluation questionnaire for the children aged between 18 and 38 months and CBQ questionnaire for the children aged 3-7 years old were completed. Child behavior was also observed during the dental treatment. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to examine the normal distribution of the population. The data were analyzed using the descriptive statistics and ANOVA, Chi Square and Pearsonian Correlation Coefficient. In this study, P< 0.05 was taken statistically significant. Results: 58 children (29.6%) had completely negative dentistry behavior and 27 children (13.8%) had completely positive behavior. 65 percent of the children aged 1-3 years old had completely negative dentistry behavior while this figure was 20 percent for the children aged 6-7 years old. The temperament score for the children with completely positive behavior was 257.95 while it was 299.37 for children with completely negative behavior. Therefore, as the child temperament score increased, the child dentistry behavior decreased in ranking. Conclusions: Both variables of child age and temperament had the enough strength to act as predictors and determiners of the child dentistry behavior.