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Objective: To examine if social support in the guise of a culturally sensitive, community-based oral health intervention could promote mother-infant bonding in socially-isolated immigrant mothers. Design: A quasi-experimental design. Participants: A convenience sample of 36 Chinese immigrant mothers with 8-week-old infants was divided into intervention and control groups. Intervention: The ChIME (Chinese Immigrant Mothers oral health Education) programme, a culturally-sensitive oral health education intervention included social support elements. Intervention mothers had five home-visits augmented by telephone calls and open access to the first author (SY). All mothers completed the Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire (PBQ) at baseline, when the infant was aged six months and 12 months. The PBQ screened for impaired mother-infant bonding. Results: At baseline, the Chinese mothers had significantly greater mean scores for bonding disorder; rejection and pathological anger and for incipient abuse compared with normative values but equivalent mean scores when compared with normative values for depressed mothers. At 12-month follow-up the intervention compared with control group mothers had significantly greater decreases in mean scores for bonding disorder, rejection and pathological anger and infant-centred anxiety. Conclusion: Social support provided within the guise of a culturally-sensitive oral health education programme assisted socially-isolated immigrant mothers to improve the quality of their relationship with their infants. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)

Objective: To assess the factorial structure and construct validity for the Chinese version of the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS). Materials and methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in March 2006 from adults in the Beijing area. The questionnaire consisted of sections to assess for participants' demographic profile and dental attendance patterns, the Chinese MDAS and the anxiety items from the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). The analysis was conducted in two stages using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Cross validation was tested with a North West of England comparison sample. Results: 783 questionnaires were successfully completed from Beijing, 468 from England. The Chinese MDAS consisted of two factors: anticipatory dental anxiety (ADA) and treatment dental anxiety (TDA). Internal consistency coefficients (tau non-equivalent) were 0.74 and 0.86 respectively. Measurement properties were virtually identical for male and female respondents. Relationships of the Chinese MDAS with gender, age and dental attendance supported predictions. Significant structural parameters between the two sub-scales (negative affectivity and autonomic anxiety) of the HADS anxiety items and the two newly identified factors of the MDAS were confirmed and duplicated in the comparison sample. Conclusion: The Chinese version of the MDAS has good psychometric properties and has the ability to assess, briefly, overall dental anxiety and two correlated but distinct aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To investigate the role of geography (place of residence) as a moderator in the relationship between dental caries disease and treatment experience and dental fear in 16-year-olds living in Malaysia., Methods: A multi-stage-stratified sampling method was employed. Five hundred and three, 16-year-olds from 6 government secondary schools participated in this study. The questionnaire examined participants' demographic profile and assessed their dental fear using the Dental Fear Survey (DFS). The clinical examination consisted of the DMFT as the outcome measure of dental caries disease and treatment experience by a single examiner (ICC = 0.98). Structural equation modelling inspected the relationship between dental fear and dental caries disease and treatment experience., Results: The mean DMFT was 2.76 (SD 3.25). The DT, MT and FT components were 0.64 (SD 1.25), 0.14 (SD 0.56) and 1.98 (SD 2.43) respectively. Rural compared with urban adolescents had significantly greater mean numbers of decayed and missing teeth. The mean DFS score was 40.8 (SD 12.4). Rural compared with urban adolescents had significantly higher mean scores for physical symptoms of dental fear. The correlation between dental fear (DFS) and dental caries disease and treatment experience (DMFT) was 0.29, p < 0.0001. The structural equation model fitted the raw data well (χ2 = 9.20, df = 8, p = 0.34). All components of DMFT were closely associated in equal strength to the unidimensional hypothetical latent variable of dental caries disease and treatment experience. The strength of the relationship between dental fear and dental caries disease and treatment experience varied in accordance with place of residence., Conclusion: In conclusion a relationship between dental fear and dental caries disease and treatment experience was shown to exist in 16-year-old adolescents living in Malaysia. This study showed that the rural-urban dichotomy acted as a moderator upon this relationship.

Objective: To assess the factorial structure and construct validity for the Chinese version of the Modified Dental Anxiety Scale (MDAS)., Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in March 2006 from adults in the Beijing area. The questionnaire consisted of sections to assess for participants' demographic profile and dental attendance patterns, the Chinese MDAS and the anxiety items from the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). The analysis was conducted in two stages using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Cross validation was tested with a North West of England comparison sample., Results: 783 questionnaires were successfully completed from Beijing, 468 from England. The Chinese MDAS consisted of two factors: anticipatory dental anxiety (ADA) and treatment dental anxiety (TDA). Internal consistency coefficients (tau non-equivalent) were 0.74 and 0.86 respectively. Measurement properties were virtually identical for male and female respondents. Relationships of the Chinese MDAS with gender, age and dental attendance supported predictions. Significant structural parameters between the two sub-scales (negative affectivity and autonomic anxiety) of the HADS anxiety items and the two newly identified factors of the MDAS were confirmed and duplicated in the comparison sample., Conclusion: The Chinese version of the MDAS has good psychometric properties and has the ability to assess, briefly, overall dental anxiety and two correlated but distinct aspects.