Paškevičiūtė, Alma

Aim To evaluate the influence of electronic media on the possible risk of developing dental fear among 11-14 years old children in Kaunas city. Methods The population of the study was 11-14 years old children from 8 high-schools in Kaunas city. Anonymous questionnaires were completed by parents of the children. Dental fear was evaluated according to parent‘s answers using Frankl behaviour rating scale. 383 questionnaires were received. Statistical analysis of the data was performed with IBM SPSS Statistics 23.0 program. Results Of the 383 participants, 201(52.5%) were girls and 182 (47.5%) were boys. The average age value was 12.47 years SN = ± 0.57. Boys used electronic media more often than girls (p\0.05). Dental fear was found in 29.9% children that had TV in their bedroom and in 21.5% children that did not have TV in their bedroom, the results were statistically significant (p\0.05). Having a computer in the bedroom significantly increased children’s time meant for electronic devices (p\0.05). Children with high use of electronic devices (5 and more hours) suffered from dental fear more often (47.4%) than children with on average 3-5 h use (31.1%) and low use of electronic media (17.8%)(p\0.05). Conclusions Increased use of electronic media may be related to dental fear among children. Future studies are needed to provide more evidence about electronic media‘s impact on [...].