Objective: To develop, validate, and apply an instrument for assessing the children's perception regarding pediatric dentist's appearance, based upon the influence of age, gender, previous dental experience, and anxiety.
Study design: Images and a nine-item questionnaire were developed. The acceptability, convergent-construct validity, and reliability based on reproducibility and internal consistency were evaluated. The validated instrument was applied in a cross-sectional study, with children (n=120) aged 7-12 years asked to evaluate images of pediatric dentists wearing different dental attire (A:all-white (control); B:printed coat and cap, colorful face mask; C:printed coat, cap and face mask; and D:white coat and cap, printed face mask). Children's age, gender, and previous dental experiences were collected with the guardians. The Children's Fear Survey Schedule-Dental Subscale assessed children's anxiety. Descriptive and inferential statistics were carried out (p<0.05).
Results: The instrument showed excellent acceptability, construct validity with moderate and strong correlations (>0.40), satisfactory reproducibility (ICC >0.70), and internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha coefficient >0.70). Considering only the attire, the children's perceptions were more positive with the use of attire C and D (p<0.05). Intergroup analysis of all the variables did not identify a statistically significant difference (p>0.05). In the intragroup analysis, compared to attire A: younger children have higher perception scores to attire D; girls, children with previous experience and without anxiety favored attire C and D; and children without previous experience showed no difference in comparison to A but did between B and C (p<0.05).
Conclusion: The C and D attires promoted a more positive perception of the appearance of a pediatric dentist when compared to A; however, age, gender, previous dental experience, and anxiety did not influence the perception scores.
Keywords: Children; Clothing; Dental Anxiety; Pediatric Dentistry; Questionnaires.