Correlating Parenting Style With Their Children’s Behavior, Dental Anxiety and Dental Caries During the First Dental Visit

Aim: Correlating parenting style with their children’s behavior, dental anxiety and dental caries during the first dental visit. Methodology: A cross sectional study was conducted. Self-administered structured questionnaire (PSDQ) contains 32 statements regarding different parent reactions to child behavior, and participants rated responses to each item using a five-point likert scale from “never” to “always” (coded 1 to 5).The target population consisted of 105 children with their parents in Faculty of Dentistry, Future University aged 3-6 years old. The highest mean score placed the parent in the proper parenting category. The child behavior was assessed using the Frankl scale and caries status was assessed using the dental caries (dmf) index. Results: At the first dental visit, the highest dmf scores were found with the permissive parenting (4.08 ± 1.61) followed by the authoritarian (3.94 ± 1.20) while the lowest scores were found with the authoritative style (2.26 ± 1.31) which mean that was a significant difference in the values of dmf scores for different parenting styles in first dental visit Conclusion: Children’s born in authoritative parenting home showed less caries and more positive behavior against dental treatment during first dental visit.