[Survey of parental acceptance rate to behavior management techniques used in pediatric dentistry]

To investigate the parental acceptance rate to behavior management techniques (BMT) used in pediatric dentistry.

Two hundred and eighty-five subjects (mother or father) were included in this survey. Five behavior management techniques including (1)tell-show-do; (2)voice control; (3)passive restraint; (4)sedation; (5) general anesthesia commonly used in pediatric dentistry were explained to the parents and then filled the questionnaires by either of the parents, including the parental age, gender, educational level and income, The answerer rated their acceptance of each technique using a visual analogue scale (VAS), a continuous scale ranging from 0 to 100mm. The left end represented "completely acceptable" and the right end represented "completely unacceptable". The subjects were instructed to rate the acceptability of each technique by placing a mark on the VAS response line. The acceptability rating of each technique by the subject was determined by measuring the distance between VAS line from the left end to the mark. SPSS10.0 software was used for statistical analysis. VAS measurements were analyzed using a factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA). Student's t test was used to analyze the difference between the acceptance rates for different gender of the answerers. The correlation between independent variables consisted of parental gender, education level, income and behavior management techniques were analyzed using Spearman correlation test.

The order of decreasing acceptance rate was as follows, tell-show-do, voice control, sedation, general anesthesia and passive restraint. The difference between each of them was statistically significant (F=215.2,P<0.01). The age and the education level of the parent did not have correlation with the acceptance rate of different BMTS. However, the income of the parents was relevant to the acceptance rate of general anesthesia by Spearman correlation analysis (P<0.01). The acceptance rate of tell-show-do and passive restraint were related to parental gender. According to Students's t test, female tended to accept tell-show-do more than males (P=0.011), nevertheless more males tended to accept passive restraint (P=0.001).

No techniques were found to be totally acceptable by all parents. Adequate communication with parents is critical for acceptance of a behavior management technique. The selection of BMT needs informed consent of the parents.