Impact of dental fear on oral health-related quality of life among school going and non-school going children in Udaipur city: A cross-sectional study

AIM: To assess the impact of dental fear on different domains of oral health-related quality of life (OHRQoL) among school going and non-school going children in the Indian scenario. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study sample consisted of 279 school children and 257 non-school going children thus making a total sample of 536 children. The sampling frame comprised of 12-15-year-old children attending two upper primary public schools and non-school going children working at shops or not working in Udaipur city, India. Information on dental fear and OHRQoL was obtained by personal interviews by a single trained and calibrated examiner through a structured questionnaire. Intercooled STATA version 9.2 was employed to perform statistical analysis. The level of significance was set at 5%. RESULTS: Mean dental fear scores among school going (35.41 [11.79]) and non-school going (47.59 [3.80]) children revealed that dental fear was significantly (P ≤ 0.05) higher among non-school going than among school going children. In school going children, the likelihood of having poor oral symptoms, functional limitation and poorer social and emotional well being were significantly (P ≤ 0.05) lesser as compared with non-school going children. CONCLUSIONS: Fear has a significant impact on different domains of OHRQoL, except emotional well being, among non-school going children.