Patient Satisfaction with Dental Treatment from Undergraduate Dental Students

Objectives:

The aim of the study was to investigate the level of patient satisfaction with dental care provided by undergraduate dental students of The University of Melbourne.

Methods:

Questionnaires were sent to a random sample of 400 patients aged 18+ years who received treatment from final year dental students in the Undergraduate Teaching Clinic of the Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne between January and December 2006. The questionnaire included sociodemographic questions and 38 items related to different aspects of patient satisfaction.

Results:

The response rate was 51.3 percent (n=163). The majority of respondents were older than 61 years of age (51.5 percent) and were born overseas (62.0 percent), although 53.7 percent spoke English at home. There were generally high levels of satisfaction reported across all 38 items on the questionnaire. Subjects were most satisfied with the level of respect they received, and least satisfied with the flexibility of appointments. Nearly one quarter of patients did not complete treatment, and reported lower levels of satisfaction across a number of items, although ceasing treatment was not always related to dissatisfaction.

Conclusions:

Overall, 85% of patients were satisfied with the treatment that they had received, with the majority indicating that they would recommend treatment in the UGTC and were happy to return for treatment in future. Although nearly one quarter of patients reported ceasing dental treatment prior to completion of treatment, this was not solely related to dissatisfaction with treatment. The main reasons identified for patients being dissatisfied were: (1) the lack of flexibility with appointment times; (2) long waiting times to receive dental treatment; (3) appointment times were too long; and (4) the entire course of treatment took too long to be completed. Many of these are institutional factors that are not within the control of the treating dental students.