Validation of new animated scale with pictorial scale and facial image scale in children during their first dental visit before and after dental treatment

Introduction: A potential problem in inpatient management in pediatric dentistry is dental anxiety (DA) among children. It is of paramount importance for pediatric dentists to identify an anxious child and review potential management options specific to every child. Aim: This study aims to validate a newly devised Chota-Bheem-Chutki (CBC) animated scale and to compare this with Raghavendra, Madhuri, Sujata Pictorial Scale (RMS-PS) and Facial Image Scale (FIS) to measure dental anxiety in young children during their first dental visit before and after treatment. Materials and Methods: One hundred children aged 6–15 years were randomly selected who visited our department. The child's anxiety levels were measured using three different scales, the FIS, RMS-PS, and the CBC animated scale. To check the validity of the CBC scale it was compared with the other two scales. The scores were recorded by asking the children to choose the figure they identified with at that instant. Spearman’s correlation test will be used to obtain a correlation among the scales. Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test is used to compare the mean anxiety scores between different scales before treatment and after treatment. Results: A statistically significant correlation was found among FIS, RMS-PS, and CBC Scale however CBS scale when compared with other scales the results obtained were found to have a higher correlation which was statistically significant. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that the CBC scale can be used as a new tool for dental anxiety assessment in children among younger age groups as they are more fascinated by cartoon characters.