Table 3.

Comparison of percentage of schoolchildren with the Likert scale ≥3 and the mean score of fear items between Estonia and Vietnam (N = 900)

Fear of	Percentage of schoolchildren with the Likert scale ≥ 3a		p b	Mean (SD) of fear items		p c
	Estonia	Vietnam		Estonia	Vietnam
Dental fear in general	6.1	14.7	<0.001*	1.5 (0.7)	1.9 (1.1)	<0.001*
All noninvasion items				5.7 (1.5)	8.4 (3.6)	<0.001*
Keeping the mouth open	0.6	8.1	<0.001*	1.1 (0.4)	1.4 (0.9)	<0.001*
Dentist	2.9	7.5	0.004*	1.2 (0.6)	1.4 (0.8)	0.002*
Teeth being cleaned by a professional	3.3	7.0	0.011*	1.2 (0.6)	1.3 (0.8)	0.057
Hearing the sound of drilling	3.0	21.3	<0.001*	1.2 (0.6)	1.9 (1.3)	<0.001*
Not being able to breathe	4.5	42.2	<0.001*	1.2 (0.7)	2.6 (1.7)	<0.001*
All invasion items				8.2 (3.3)	10.7 (5.1)	<0.001*
Instruments put in the mouth	3.2	19.3	<0.001*	1.3 (0.6)	1.9 (1.2)	<0.001*
Suction using the mouth	3.1	13.6	<0.001*	1.2 (0.6)	1.6 (1.1)	<0.001*
Pain during dental treatment	21.1	29.2	0.011*	2.0 (1.0)	2.3 (1.4)	<0.001*
Dentist drilling	26.4	33.2	0.036*	2.1 (1.1)	2.4 (1.5)	<0.001*
Dental injections	38.1	43.0	0.185	2.5 (1.3)	2.7 (1.5)	0.013*
Eleven fear items				15.4 (4.4)	20.8 (9.1)	<0.001*

^aChildren without experience of each fear item were excluded from the statistics.

^bChi‐square test.

^cStudent's t test.

^* Significant.