DISTRACTION TECHNIQUES OF CARTOON FILMS SHOWING ON ANXIETY LEVEL OF PEDIATRIC PATIENTS

Dental anxiety arising from childhood is an obstacle for pediatric patients in dental care, anxiety in pediatric patients has been recognized as a problem for many years which causes children to often delay and refuse to do dental treatment. Worldwide the level of anxiety in dental care is high, reaching 6-15% of the entire population. The purpose of this study was to determine the distraction technique of showing cartoon films to the level of anxiety in pediatric patients at the Plumbon Public Health Center, Cirebon Regency. This research was conducted using a pre-experimental research design with a one group pretest posttest design research design. One group pretest posttest design at the beginning has been observed through pretest first, then given treatment or intervention, then given posttest. The sample of this study was carried out by accidental sampling, with the Wilcoxon test. Based on the results of the study, it was found that the anxiety level of pediatric patients before being given the distraction technique with the criteria of anxiety 36.7%, the anxiety level of the child patient after being given the distraction technique with the criteria of not being anxious 56.7% and there is an influence of distraction techniques showing cartoon films on the anxiety level of pediatric patients at the Plumbon Public Health Center, Cirebon Regency with the majority of children experiencing an anxiety level of 33.3% before giving distraction techniques in the flat face category and after being given distraction techniques as much as 56.7%.