Background
One's smile clearly plays a significant role in the perception and judgment that others have of one's appearance and personality.
Aim
We sought to develop and validate a questionnaire related to the social judgment of children and adolescents and to evaluate, through its application, the perceptions and judgment of children and adolescents regarding their view of different traumatic dental injuries and their consequences (TDIs‐Cs) as well as the motivation to seek dental treatment.
Design
The aspects of acceptability, discriminative properties, internal consistency, test‐retest reliability, and construct validity were evaluated in the developed questionnaire. A cross‐sectional study was conducted involving 100 boys and girls aged 10‐15 years. Images of an adolescent male and female were either manipulated or not (control) to create different types of TDI‐C (eg, enamel fracture, enamel and dentin fracture, crown colour change, and tooth loss/avulsion). These images were analysed by the participants, using a previously validated questionnaire with a six‐positive‐point and six‐negative‐point scale, in relation to their social physical and psychosocial characteristics. The data were analysed with the Friedman, Wilcoxon, and Mann‐Whitney tests (P < 0.05).
Results
The developed questionnaire presented high acceptability, strong discriminative properties, satisfactory internal consistency, and satisfactory test‐retest reliability, but weak construct validity. The presence of TDI‐C had a negative effect on all characteristics evaluated (P < 0.001). Tooth loss had the highest level of rejection. Additionally, the presence of TDI‐C had a greater negative impact on the aspects of ‘starting fights’, ‘being given a nickname’, and ‘being ashamed to smile’ in males than in females (P < 0.05). Children and adolescents with TDI‐C were judged as needing to seek dental treatment (P < 0.001).
Conclusion
The questionnaire developed showed properties of validity and reliability in its administration in a child and adolescent population. TDIs‐Cs have a negative influence on the social judgment of children and adolescents.