Dental fear in children--a proposed model

Over the past eleven years, we have worked together to treat children who are dentally phobic. This has enabled us to develop an understanding of how children come to be dentally fearful. We have constructed a model of child dental fear which helps us in our work. It is important to acknowledge that fear is a normal phenomenon when any of us are exposed to threat. Helping dentally fearful children appraise or evaluate threat, face their fear and build upon their strengths is the task facing dentists and, occasionally, psychologists. The consequences for children of not doing so are extreme difficulty with accepting and ultimately total avoidance of treatment. Both of these can persist into adulthood. First, we propose to discuss the normality of fear in children, placing dental fear within a developmental context. We will then outline a model for assessing and treating dental fear which identifies five discrete but interrelated factors. Each of the factors and its treatment is illustrated with examples.