Validação da escala tátil B-RMS-TS destinada a crianças e adolescentes brasileiros com deficiência visual

Abstract

Vision plays an important role in an individual's life experiences and emotions. A considerable part of the information that a person receives occurs through vision, and the partial or total loss of this sensory function can limit the experience of life. In this sense, dentists routinely face challenges in relation to the treatment of special patients. The purpose of this study is to manufacture and validate the B-RMS-TS scale in children and adolescents with visual impairment (VI) for use in Brazil. Ten children and adolescents between 10 and 17 years old from Instituto São Rafael, Belo Horizonte / MG participated in the study. The participants answered the dental anxiety scale (DAS), the B-RMS-TS and the DAS scale in Braille. Data on age, sex and degree of visual impairment were collected. Descriptive analyzes, analysis of the construct's validity by Pearson's correlation, internal consistency by Cronbach's alpha and test-retest reliability by the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) were performed. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (CAAE: 13555219.6.0000.5149). The average age of the participants was 13.6 years (± 1.41), 60% of whom were male. Five participants had low vision and 5 blindness. Most participants reported having some degree of anxiety (90%). The mean scores of the DAS, B-RMS-TS and DAS in Braille scales were 9.00 (± 3.30), 9.80 (± 3.26) and 9.44 (± 2.79), respectively. Female participants reported a significantly higher degree of dental anxiety than male participants (p <0.05). There was no difference between the scores of the scales between individuals with low vision and blindness (p> 0.05). There was an excellent correlation between B-RMS-TS and DAS (r = 0.971; p <0.001) and DAS in Braille (r = 0.934; p <0.011). Cronbach's alpha and ICC values were 0.661 and 0.987 (95% CI: 0.817-0.999), respectively. Most participants (70%) declared preference for the tactile scale. The results suggest that the tactile scale was well accepted by the participants, it seems to be valid and reliable to measure the level of dental anxiety in Brazilian children and adolescents with visual impairment.