Parents’ Dental Anxiety Trajectories and Their Association With Treatment Procedures

Objectives: The aim was to identify parents’ dental anxiety trajectories and their association with the number of treatment procedures.
Methods: This longitudinal study nested in the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study included mothers (n=3808, 66% of those informed) recruited during pregnancy and their partners. Ethical clearance and written consent from participants were obtained. Mothers and fathers with sufficient data on dental anxiety and on treatment procedures were included in the analyses. Dental anxiety was measured with Modified Dental Anxiety Scale at gestational weeks (gw) 14 and 34, and 3 and 24 months (mo) after birth. Data on dental treatments from gw14 to 24mo were obtained from the national public health care centers’ patient data register.
Examinations, preventive care and radiological examinations were categorized as preventive treatment procedures; and fillings, periodontal, endodontic and surgical procedures as restorative treatment procedures. Latent growth mixture modelling was used to identify dental anxiety trajectory classes for mothers and fathers. Associations between trajectories and numbers of treatment procedures were analyzed using Joncheere-Terpstra test.
Results: Trajectories for dental anxiety were identified for 2068 fathers and 3201 mothers. Fathers’ trajectories were Stable Low (80.1%), Stable High (3.4%), Stable Moderate (11.0%), Moderate Increasing (3.9%) and High Decreasing (1.6%). Mothers’ trajectories were Stable Low (80.7%), Stable High (11.2%), Moderate Increasing (5.3%) and High Decreasing (2.8%).
In fathers, highest number of preventive and restorative procedures were observed among those in the Stable High trajectory (preventive mean 5.6 vs 1.5–3.4, p<0.001; restorative mean 0.18 vs 0.01–0.09, p=0.043). In mothers, highest number of preventive and restorative procedures were observed among those in the High Decreasing trajectory (preventive mean 6.30 vs 3.1–3.9, p<0.001; restorative mean 4.5 vs 2.4–3.4, p<0.001).
Conclusions: High numbers of dental procedures were associated with different dental anxiety trajectories in fathers and mothers, but the reason behind calls for further studies.