Effectiveness of Storytelling on Children with High Dental Anxiety: Basis for Pediatric Dentistry Material

Abstract

This study aims to know if storytelling is an effective method in reducing children’s dental anxiety prior to dental treatment procedures. A one-group pretest-posttest quasi experimental design study was conducted on eight (8) children ages between 5–8 years with high dental anxiety. A single pre-test observation is taken on the group of participants, storytelling intervention, afterwards was a single post-test observation on the same measure. Pre-test and post-test level of dental anxiety was assessed by using the Faces Version of the Modified Child Dental Anxiety Scale (MCDASf). The pre- test mean score of the participants was 3.91 which suggest a high level of dental anxiety. The post-test mean score was 2.98 which suggest a moderate dental anxiety level. The results show that storytelling helps in lowering the dental anxiety of the children (t = -10.003; p = .000). Study showed that age (H = 2.500; p = 0.475), gender (U = 5.00; p = 0.456) and frequency of dental visit (H = 0.717; p = 0.699) does not determine the children’s dental anxiety level. This study has highlighted that storytelling can reduce the dental anxiety level of children prior dental treatment procedures. This implies that storytelling can be a pre-behavior management method to prepare children with dental anxiety before their dental visit.