Children’s Choice of Dentist’s Attire, Color, and Dental Clinic Environment

Abstract

Background: The appearance of a dentist and the ambience of the dental clinic environment play an essential role in a child's behaviour and cooperation during a dental visit.

Objective: To assess children's knowledge of who a paediatric dentist is and evaluate their preference regarding the dentist's attire, dental clinic environment, and its effect on their  dental anxiety

Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 185 schoolchildren aged 6 to 12 years  at the University of Benin and the University of Benin teaching hospital community, Benin City, Nigeria. A specially  prepared interviewer-administered questionnaire with a colour chart was used to collect the information, while  the modified dental anxiety scale was used to assess their dental anxiety. The children were provided with  coloured pencils to shade the provided picture with their preferred colours. Data collected were entered and analyzed  using IBM SPSS version 21. The results of the analysis were presented as bar charts, pie charts and tables. Test of  association was done using Chisquare (χ2) at a significance level of 0.05.

Results: Among the 185 study participants,  110(59.5%) were in the older age group, 96(51.9%) were females, and 113(61.1%) were in the Junior Secondary classes.  Most (87%) described a paediatric dentist as a dentist treating children, and 120(65%) were graded as anxious. Ninety- five (51.4%) participants preferred long sleeves, and majority (65%) preferred non-white attire. The preferred coloured  attire was yellow, 44(36.7%) and over half 156(57.3%) preferred plain colour attire. The preferred clinic wall colour was  orange 37(20.0%) and yellow 17.8%. Vertically placed two colour contrast orientation was preferred in 106(57.2%) and  with 62.2% preference for clinic wall with cartoon characters. The relationship between gender with choice of attire  colour and age group, gender and class with preferred clinic wall colour was statistically significant (P <0.05).

Conclusion:  The participants have a good level of knowledge about who a paediatric dentist is. The most preferred  colour of the dentist attire is yellow, while the most preferred colours of the dental clinic were yellow and orange. Participants preferred vertical colour contrast and cartoon character-designed walls.