The management of dental fear symptoms in children in a coparticipation model

To explore the impact of procedural behavior management on children with dental fear (DF) using the interactive mode of coparticipative doctor-patient interactions.

Ninety-eight children with dental fear and aged 3-6 years were randomly divided into an observation group and a control group. Dental treatment was performed on the observation group under the coparticipation model, while the control group adopted the traditional tell-show-do (TSD) operation. The entire process of diagnosing and treating each child was recorded, and the degree of dental fear was assessed using a behavioral grading method as the standard.

The degrees of fear in the children in the observation group and the control group were 3.571 ± 0.913 and 3.857 ± 1.000. The two groups showed no significant difference in the degree of fear (t＝1.477, P > 0.05). During the treatment, the fear scores of the children in the observation group and the control group were 1.428 ± 1.061 and 3.286 ± 0.707. The two groups showed statistically significant differences in fear scores (t＝10.198, P < 0.001).

In the coparticipative model, the fear level of DF children was significantly reduced by process-based behavior management, which helped to improve the dental fear of the children.