Social judgments made by children (10–15 year old) in relation to visible incisors trauma: School-based cross-sectional study in Khartoum state, Sudan

BACKGROUND: Dento-alveolar trauma is a very common occurrence in childhood; however, there is a paucity of data about children's judgments in relation to dental status. There is a significant correlation between the children's incisor teeth status and the social judgments made by their peers. AIM: The purpose of this study was to determine whether the social attributes of a school child would be influenced by his or her incisor teeth status. Also, it is aimed to determine the judgment between male and female children and different age groups within the same class. SETTING AND DESIGN: A descriptive cross-sectional study conducted among 178 male and female children from year 5 (age 10–11 years) of primary school and year 2 of secondary school (age 14–15 years) within Khartoum state. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Students were invited to look at colored photographs of four different children's faces and to make a social judgment about these children's photographs. Using a previously validated child-centered questionnaire, participants rated subjects using a four-point Likert scale for three negative and six positive attributes. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Total attribute scores were tested for significant differences, according to whether the subject had visible incisor trauma or not, using t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) test with the level of significance set at P ≤ 0.05. RESULTS: Children with visible incisor trauma were given more negative attributes than children without incisor trauma (P = 0.05). Results were similar in both genders and both school years. Younger students within the same class gave more negative attributes toward children with visible incisor trauma than their older peers, with P = 0.04 and P = 0.9 for children aged 10 years and 11 years, respectively. CONCLUSION: The data confirmed results of previous studies that children with visible incisor trauma are seen more negatively than those without visible incisor trauma.