Reliability and validity of a short form of the dental subscale of the child fear survey schedule used in a Nigerian children population.

This study sought to establish the reliability and validity of a short form of the Dental Subscale of the Child Fear Survey Schedule (DFSS-SF). The schedule was administered twice to 23 children who had not attended a dental clinic for dental treatment before. The second administration was done two weeks after the first. They had no preknowledge of the second administration of the schedule. The children's behaviour during treatment was also assessed using the Frankl's scale. An additional assessment was also made using the dichotomy "anxious" or "not anxious". Analysis of the reliability was done using the Cronbach's coefficient alphas as well as the Pearson product-moment coefficient. The overall coefficient alphas for the DFSS-SF was 0.82 (p < 0.0001). A test retest correlation of 0.73 (p < 0.0001) was obtained. On comparison of the DFSS-SF with the Frankl's scale, a significant difference was found in the psychometric scores of the children grouped as anxious and no anxious. Also, on comparison of the DFSS-SF with the dichotomy scale, a highly significant difference between the two was observed (p = 0.005). A good negative correlation was found between the second administration of the DFSS-SF and Frankl's scale (r = -0.54; p = < 0.01). The DFSS-SF is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring dental anxiety in Nigerian children. However the study needs to be replicated on a larger number of children.