The Assessment of the Acceptability of Behavior Management Techniques for Pediatric Patients by Their Mothers Referred to a Pediatric Dental Clinic in Tehran

The use of behavior management techniques for the treatment of children who are uncooperative with a dentist is inevitable. Behavior management techniques are the methods that the dental health team could effectively treat the child and inspires a constructive dental attitude.

Objective: Determining the acceptability of behavior management techniques by mothers referred to a pediatric dental clinic in Tehran (2017).

Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in a pediatric dental clinic in Tehran. A film, including 4 different behavior management techniques such as general anesthesia(GA), parents’ separation(PS), Tell-Do-Show and voice control(VC) was produced. Before showing each method, a brief explanation of the characteristics and purposes of methods was given by a pediatric dentist in the film. A total of 50 mothers, referred to this private dental clinic, completed a questionnaire after observing any method in this film. The data were analyzed using t-test and Chi-square

Results: 56% of the children were boys and 44% were girls, and they were in the age group of 3 to 10 years old, and children are ranked from first to fifth in the family. Mothers with a primary to postgraduate education were between the ages of 23-50 and had up to 5 kids. The acceptance of Tell-Do-Show by mothers was 100%, Voice Control was 92%, separating the child from parents was 50%, and General Anesthesia was 30%. There was a significant correlation between acceptance of voice control method with child's order, child's age and the number of children in a family, and also between the acceptance of general anesthesia by mothers with mother's education level and child's order (p <0.05).

Conclusion: According to the findings, Tell-Do-Show method was the most common method which was accepted by mothers, and general anesthesia was the least accepted method by the mothers.