Assessment of Communication Quality through Work Authorization between Dentists and Dental Technicians in Fixed and Removable Prosthodontics

Abstract

Fabrication of a clinically successful dental prosthesis requires clear and effective communication between dentists and dental technicians. Adequate completion of work authorization by dentists provides a means for increased professional quality assurance and satisfaction in dental prosthesis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of communication between dentists and dental technicians via work authorization for fixed and removable dental prosthesis in Pakistan. This cross-sectional study was conducted for a period of 6 months to assess the quality of communication between dentists and dental technicians. A well-constructed questionnaire regarding work authorization of removable and fixed prostheses was used as a tool to collect data from 453 dentists. A linear regression analysis was performed to evaluate the relationship of the independent and dependent variables. A p value of ≤0.05 was considered statistically significant. It was observed that 92.1% of the dentists leave removable partial denture design to the dental technicians. About 56.5% of the dentists indicated information about base retention of partial dentures in work authorization. The majority of the dentists (56.5%) mentioned the material to be used for the construction of casting partial dentures. Nearly 66% of the dentists indicated the design of margins, and 44.6% of the dentists did not select the shade for fixed prostheses. Nearly 43% of the dentists did not draw the design of restoration, 21.9% chose to draw the design on paper, and 32.2% of the dentists drew the design on the cast. Meanwhile, 76.8% of the participants chose to directly communicate with their dental technicians personally. Nearly 41% of the dentists were satisfied with the restoration design, and 13.5% of the participants were not satisfied with the designs. Poor communication between dentists and technicians was observed, as the majority of the design decisions were left to the dental technicians. Therefore, communication between dentists and dental technicians should be improved by conducting combined workshops for the successful construction of dental prostheses.

Virtual and Interprofessional Objective Structured Clinical Examination in Dentistry and Dental Technology: Development and User Evaluations

“…Qualitative evaluations extracted from the one-on-one interviews also supported this result. For the removable prosthodontics section, the negative correlation between the scores of the RPD design station and the CAD wax pattern station was not statistically significant, which might be owing to the fact that more than half of the groups (15/16, 94%) worked collaboratively to modify the RPD design to possibly compensate for the lack of training, which is consistent with the findings about dentists' inadequate competence in RPD design reported in other studies [64,65].…”