Impact of Dental Anxiety Coping Module on Children With Dental Anxiety

The Impact of Dental Anxiety Coping Module on Children With Dental Anxiety: A Randomised Controlled Trial

The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of the Dental Anxiety Coping Module (DACM) in children with dental anxiety. The main questions to answer are:

1. Will the Dental Anxiety Coping Module has any effect on dental anxiety in primary school children based on MY-ACDAS and HRV-Biofeedback?
2. Is there any difference in dental anxiety between control and intervention group on baseline and post-test measured with MY-ACDAS?
3. Is there any difference in dental anxiety between control and intervention group on baseline, during and post-test measured with and HRV-Biofeedback?

Dental Anxiety Coping Module (DACM) is a combination of Dental Tour and Expressive Art Therapy. Participants will be randomised into 2 groups, Control group and Intervention group (with DACM). Control group will have dental procedure without any intervention. While the Intervention group will start with dental tour where they will be shown around the dental clinic followed by Expressive Art Therapy where they will have collage and finger painting done. After DACM, participants will continue with the same dental procedure as the control group.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Malaysian child, age 7 to 11 years old that understand basic Malay and English language.
• Children that fulfil both MY-ACDAS score 26 and above and HRV-Biofeedback of very low coherence score (incoherence).
• Children with American Society of Anaesthesiologists (ASA) I and ASA II classification.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Children requiring emergency treatment such as pain, facial cellulitis, and trauma cases.
• Child with learning disabilities, hearing, or visual impairment, developmental or intellectual disability and cognitive impairment.
• Parents/guardians who refuse to allow their child to participate in this trial.