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Behavioural and emotional problems in children referred to a centre for special dental care
Author(s) -
Berge Maaike,
Veerkamp Jaap S. J.,
Hoogstraten Johan,
Prins Pier J. M.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
community dentistry and oral epidemiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.061
H-Index - 101
eISSN - 1600-0528
pISSN - 0301-5661
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0528.1999.tb02008.x
Subject(s) - cbcl , medicine , child behavior checklist , checklist , norm (philosophy) , dental fear , dental care , clinical psychology , psychiatry , family medicine , anxiety , psychology , political science , law , cognitive psychology
– This study was conducted among 203 children (103 boys) referred to a centre for special dental care because of a high level of dental fear. It was under‐taken to explore to what extent behavioural and emotional problems co‐exist in these children compared with children of a Dutch norm group. The children's parents filled out the parental version of the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL), before their first appointment at the centre. The behavioural and emotional problems of the children were assessed by this CBCL, and the mean scores of the children in the study were compared with the mean scores of the norm group. The mean scores on all scales, except on the subscale ‘sex problems’, of the children with a high level of dental fear proved to be significantly higher than the mean scores of the norm group ( P ≦0.001). The results indicated that children referred to a special dental care centre not only suffer from high dental fear but also have problems in several other behavioural and emotional areas. These problems appear to be heterogeneous; they were found in several specic problem areas, both external and internal.