Strength and difficulties questionnaire: A tool as prerequisite to measure child's mental health problems attending dental clinics.

Abstract

Child's behavior on dental visit depends on variables such as age, parental behavior, parental anxiety, medical/dental history, and dental procedures. Behavioral-screening questionnaire, such as the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), can be used to preassess the child's mental health status which further predicts child behavioral pattern in dental clinics. To measure emotional status among children of 3-14 years age group attending dental clinics. A total of 176 parents of children aged 3-14 years were involved in this study. The child's emotional and behavioral statuses were assessed using SDQ. On analyzing the SDQ data, it was found that 80% of children came under the abnormal category whereas only 8% of children were found to be in normal category. Twelve percent of children came under borderline category. On the individual behavioral subsets scores, 13% were rated as abnormal on emotional subset, 40% on conduct problems, 12% on hyperactivity, and 29% on peer problems subset. Findings of this study suggest that incorporating tools to identify the current emotional state would give a clue and allow the dentist to develop a behavior guidance plan to accomplish the necessary oral health care. However, the results are preliminary; studies with larger sample should be done to validate the results among diverse populations.