Children’s Perception of Dentists through the Interpretation of Drawings

Objective: To evaluate the perceptions of students aged 05-12 years about dentists through the interpretation of drawings. Material and Methods: This is a cross-sectional study whose sample consisted of 1015 children aged 5-12 years from 10 public schools of Salvador, Brazil. The students produced drawings about their main idea associated with the dentist and answered a semi-structured interview consisting of seven items. Results: Males (521 volunteers - 51.3%) were more prevalent than females (494 volunteers, 48.6%), 688 (67.7%) children had experienced dental care, and need for treatment was the reason for seeking dental care to 306 (30.1%) of them. In describing the professional using one word, positive words totaled 805 (79.1%) responses, negative words accounted for 24 (2.2%) and 186 (18.3%) participants could not answer. The drawing category that had the largest number of volunteers was “Procedures”, with 238 (23.4%) drawings, followed by: “Dental Consultation” with 228 (22.4%), “Other Professionals” with 174 (17.1%), “Dentist” with 115 (11.3%), “Oral Health” with 71 (6.9%), “Miscellaneous” with 71 (6.9%), “Dental Office” with 55 (5.4%), “Mouth” with 36 (3.5%) and “Pain / Fear” with 27 (2.6%). Conclusion: Drawings were effective in representing the particular vision of students and showed a plurality and complexity of concepts and ideas related to the dentist. In addition to procedures and consultation, professional behavior, knowledge transmitted to patients, physical environment and experienced sensations, factors linked to the origin of the main idea about the professional were also relevant. The perception of volunteers was positive both in the drawings as in the responses of the semi-structured interview.