The Abeer Children Dental Anxiety Scale (ACDAS) cross-cultural adaptation and validity of self-report measures in the Malaysian Children Context (MY-ACDAS).

BACKGROUND: The Abeer Children Dental Anxiety Scale (ACDAS) source language was developed and validated in an English-speaking country in the UK to measure dental anxiety among children. The ACDAS also included the child's cognitive assessment, as well as feedback from the parent or the legal guardian and a dental health professional (DHP). This is the first study to validate the application of the ACDAS in Malay or Bahasa Melayu for children aged 6-16 years. AIM: To assess the Malay-translated version of the ACDAS, postadaptation into the local context and validation by the content and construct experts. DESIGN: The English ACDAS was translated into Malay first through forward translation and then through backward translation. The prefinal translated version of the instrument was designed, with the participation of 61 children and 61 parents or legal guardians. Subsequently, a final cross-cultural adaptation of the instrument was then made for another group of participants and evaluated for validity and test-retest reliability among 144 children and 144 parents or legal guardians participating in the self-report feedback process at the Paediatric Dental Clinic, Faculty of Dentistry, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The cross-cultural adaptation of the instrument considered translating to Malaysian national language and adapting to its culture. RESULTS: The Malay-translated ACDAS consisted of 19 items. The translated version of Malaysian-ACDAS (MY-ACDAS) achieved an acceptable agreement between six expert committee members with an internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha value, αconsistency) of 0.839. The test-retest reliability results of all participants support semantic and conceptual equivalence as an accepted construct validity between the children, parents and DHPs across the multicultural Malaysian population. CONCLUSION: The MY-ACDAS is a valid and reliable scale for measuring dental anxiety among Malaysian children.

Influence of Artificial Intelligence-Driven Diagnostic Tools on Treatment Decision-Making in Early Childhood Caries: A Systematic Review of Accuracy and Clinical Outcomes.

Early detection and accurate prediction of the risk of early childhood caries (ECC) are essential for effective prevention and management. This systematic review aims to assess the performance and applicability of machine learning algorithms in ECC prediction and detection. A comprehensive search was conducted to identify studies utilizing machine learning algorithms to predict or detect ECC. The included (n = 6) studies demonstrated high accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUC) values related to predicting and detecting ECC. The application of machine learning algorithms contributed to enhanced clinical decision-making, targeted preventive measures, and improved ECC management. The studies also highlighted the importance of considering multiple factors, including demographic, environmental, and genetic factors, when developing dental caries prediction models. Machine learning algorithms hold significant potential for ECC prediction and detection, having promising performance outcomes. Due to the heterogeneity of the studies, no meta-analysis could be performed. Moreover, further research is needed to explore the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of integrating these algorithms into dental practice. This approach would ultimately contribute to enabling more effective and personalized dental caries management and improved oral health outcomes for diverse populations.

Assessing dental anxiety in young girls in KSA.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the potential causative factors of dental anxiety in girls aged 6-14 years in Almadinah Almunawwarah, KSA. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted with a random sample of school girls aged 6-14 years. The participants' perceptions were captured using the self-administered Abeer Children Dental Anxiety Scale. RESULTS: There were 118 respondents and the results showed 47.6% prevalence of dental anxiety. Dental extraction was reported as the most common cause for dental anxiety (18.6%), followed by the feeling of numbness after the application of dental anaesthesia (17.8%). There was no significant relationship between dental anxiety and cognition. The highest score of dental anxiety was found in children aged 7-9 years, of which 35.6% (42/118) had previously never visited a dentist. A negative correlation between dental anxiety scores and age was reported with a Pearson correlation coefficient of -0.026. CONCLUSIONS: Dental extraction, anaesthesia, and numbness were the most frequent causative factors of dental anxiety that appear to decrease in frequency as the child gets older. However, the highest score of dental anxiety was reported in 7- to 9-year-old girls.

Effects of cleft lip and palate on children's psychological health: A systematic review.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to evaluate the psychological effects of cleft lip and palate (CLP) on children and their parents and to determine any relationship between social support and timing of surgical repairs for these defects. METHODS: A systematic review that followed the problem, intervention, comparison, outcome and setting (PICOS) method was used. The participants were children with CLP, interventions were surgical corrections and/or social support, comparison occurred with children with neither surgical corrections nor social support, outcomes were psychological effects and the study design was a systematic review. Four electronic databases, EBSCO, ProQuest, Science Direct, and PsycInfo were used to search for studies over the period of ten years (January 2007 until January 2017). The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2009 guidelines on systematic review reporting were used for this study. RESULTS: Searching through four databases revealed 53,346 articles; however, only 26 articles that met the inclusion criteria were included. There were few articles about children. CONCLUSIONS: CLP is not only connected to psychological effects which distress children's self-esteem and psychological functions, it also extends to their parents, particularly their mothers. However, parental and social support seem to have positive influences by reducing these psychological effects.

The development of a dental anxiety scale with a cognitive component for children and adolescents.

PURPOSE: To validate a dental anxiety scale with a cognitive component for use in children and adolescents. METHODS: A total of 439 children (≥ 6 years old) were evaluated. For each child, 2 operators each assessed using the Abeer Children Dental Anxiety Scale (ACDAS) at visit-1, and the chief investigator also assessed using the Child Fear Survey Schedule-Dental Subscale (CFSS-DS) at visit-1 and using the ACDAS 2 weeks later. A sample of 274 children was assessed for external validity. RESULTS: A receiver operating characteristic curve showed that the cutoff 26 gave the optimal results for sensitivity (96%, 95% confidence interval [CI]=81.7~99.9) and specificity (66%, 95% CI=57.4~73.8), with an area under the curve of 0.80 (95% CI=0.73~0.87). ACDAS had substantial to almost perfect intra- and inter examiner reliability along with good concurrent validity (r=0.77) and discriminative validity (r=0.79). For convergent validity, ACDAS had a significant relationship between the Dental Anxiety (DA) scores and cognitive status P<.001. Cronbach's alpha (α) was 0.90, which indicated good internal consistency. The external validity results indicated that the scale was generalizable. CONCLUSIONS: The Abeer Children Dental Anxiety Scale is a valid cognitive scale to measure dental anxiety, and it encompasses the required criteria to be regarded as the gold standard among dental anxiety scales.

Assessment of the quality of reporting of randomized clinical trials in paediatric dentistry journals.

INTRODUCTION: Reporting of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) should be of high quality to support the conclusions reached by the authors. Poor-quality reporting has been associated with an overestimation in intervention efficacy. Within the field of paediatric dentistry, no study has assessed the quality of reporting. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess published RCTs in paediatric dental journals between 1985 and 2006 for: (i) whether quality of reporting allows readers to assess the validity of trials; and (ii) whether quality of reporting has improved since the introduction of the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) guidelines. METHODS: Hand search of the main paediatric dentistry journals; inclusion criteria were: the trial was performed on children, and RCT. CONSORT guidelines were made into an operational checklist. Trials published between 1985 and 1997, and between 1998 and 2006 were compared to determine any improvement since the publication of the CONSORT guidelines. RESULTS: One hundred and seventy-three of 5635 articles met the inclusion criteria. Reporting quality was poor overall and showed heterogeneity. It had improved slightly since the publication of CONSORT. Few trials were reported adequately. CONCLUSION: The quality of reporting of clinical trials is poor, and often not adequate to allow readers to assess trial validity. Overall quality of reporting has not substantially improved since the publication of CONSORT.