Concordance between patient satisfaction and the dentist's view

Abstract

Objectives This study examined the dentist’s view of the patient’s experience and concordance with the patient’s rating of satisfaction. Methods Practitioners from 197 practices in the National Dental Practice-Based Research Network recruited consecutively seen patients who had defective restorations that were replaced or repaired. At the end of the treatment visit, the treating dentist and 5,879 patients completed and returned a survey that asked about the patient’s satisfaction. Results Dentists viewed their patients as satisfied with their treatment experience (89% n=4,719) and that they had been perceived as friendly (97%, n=5,136). Dentists had less strong feelings about whether patients had a preference for the restorative material (43%, n=2,271) or an interest in information about the procedure (33%, n=1,757). Overall, patients were satisfied, and most of the time dentists correctly predicted this. Among patients who were less than satisfied, there was a substantial subset of cases where dentists were not aware. Conclusion For improved patient-centered care, patient desires, expectations and perception of the dental care experience need to be assessed by the dentist and then managed or corrected as needed. Practice implications By taking a patient-centered approach, dentists should seek to understand how patients evaluate and rate the service provided, thereby enabling themselves to focus on what each patient values most.

Judgment of the Quality of Restorative Care as Predictors of Restoration Retreatment: Findings from the National Dental PBRN

“…Response choices were very satisfied, satisfied, neutral, dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied. A dentist version that asked about selected aspects of the treatment and visit was also developed (Riley et al 2014). An earlier report of this study provides greater detail of procedural, material, and tooth factors that were tested and that contributed to the need for retreatment of the restoration (Gordan et al 2015).…”

How to Bridge Research Results to Everyday Clinical Care?

“…One behavioral science study involving 8000 patients asked patients about their dental office experience and their satisfaction with the dental procedure received. 39,40 Because we wanted to make sure that the anesthesia had worn off when patients responded the questionnaire (so that the report would be most unbiased), patients had to respond no sooner than 24 hours, which meant that they would have left the office when they responded. The research group had some concern if patients would remember to respond to the questionnaire and mail it accordingly 24 hours later.…”

“…In another practice-based study involving close to 10,000 restorations and 200 clinicians, we assessed the behavioral aspect of patient satisfaction and found out that overall patient satisfaction was higher when the defective restoration was repaired compared with replaced. 39,40 Another study by the Network assessed the outcome of almost 6000 restorations that had been repaired vs replaced after 12 months by 195 dentists. The results showed that repaired restorations were less likely to need an aggressive treatment than restorations that had been replaced.…”

Satisfaction with dental care among patients who receive invasive or non-invasive treatment for non-cavitated early dental caries: findings from one region of the National Dental PBRN

“…Unfortunately, most studies have focused on dental visits in general [11, 12] and have sampled from the community without regard to time lag or the type of dental care received [3, 13–15]. Additionally, many studies have taken place in university dental clinics, a setting for which generalizability to other practice settings may be debatable [2, 16–18].…”