Factors Affecting Patient Satisfaction with Complete Dentures

Abstract

Background. Rehabilitation of the edentulous patients has always been a challenge. The success of conventional complete denture therapy might be affected by several factors such as patients’ age, personality, previous denture wearing experience, expectations, aesthetics, residual ridge form and anatomy, denture quality, the method of its construction, dentist experience, and dentist-patient relations. Objectives. The aim of this study was to compare patient satisfaction with complete dentures provided by fourth and fifth year dental students and prosthodontists with a minimum of 5 years’ experience at the University of Jordan Hospital 8 weeks after insertion. Methods. Questionnaires were distributed to a total of 60 completely edentulous patients who received complete maxillary and mandibular dentures. Besides demographic questions, the questionnaire included questions that probed the patient’s satisfaction with his maxillary and mandibular dentures in general using two types of scales. Results. Results indicated that dentist experience does not affect patients’ satisfaction with their complete dentures. Our results also indicated that patients who had previous dentures could adapt more easily and were generally more satisfied with their newly inserted dentures especially with regard to their chewing ability and comfort with their mandibular dentures. Gender also influenced patient satisfaction with complete dentures especially the part related to psychological and social disability. Conclusions. Results of this study will help in further understanding factors influencing patient satisfaction with their complete dentures.

Patients’ satisfaction and quality of life with complete dentures constructed by various clinicians. A cross-sectional study.

“…In the present study putting hands on the difference in patient's satisfaction with different levels of operator's experience, was evaluated. The results indicated that for many reasons, no significant difference was observed in patient satisfaction and quality of life with the complete dentures constructed by dental students and those by professional prosthodontists, and that conclusion was in accordance with other research (28,29,31) .…”

“…In accordance with this study's results, a study stated that the high-quality complete dentures provided by experienced dentists may not lead to good patient satisfaction; therefore, it is difficult to evaluate the significance of experience in the denture treatment field (28) . Some authors' results supporting this study, also found no significant correlation between the dentists' experience and patients' satisfaction with their complete dentures (28,32) , which is the same conclusion of the present study.…”

“…In accordance with this study's results, a study stated that the high-quality complete dentures provided by experienced dentists may not lead to good patient satisfaction; therefore, it is difficult to evaluate the significance of experience in the denture treatment field (28) . Some authors' results supporting this study, also found no significant correlation between the dentists' experience and patients' satisfaction with their complete dentures (28,32) , which is the same conclusion of the present study. Meanwhile, another study declares that the emotional reaction of an aged person is affected by subjective factors while the ability to make objective judgment diminishes with progressive senescence, therefore the patient's satisfaction may often be an expression of his feeling of gratitude to the dentist (24) .…”

“…Another study stated that patients treated by dental students found their dentures more efficient than those treated by specialists, which may be due to higher expectations of the patients from the treatment outcome by a specialist which of course affected their overall satisfaction. Above all, students tend to be more passionate and spend long time talking and listening to their patients, furthermore, they are grateful and happy that these patients accepted to give them the chance to treat them which might have been reflected on patients emotionally (28). All these factors may be the reason behind the nearly equal satisfaction levels with dentures provided by dental students and those provided by specialized prosthodontists that was observed in the present study.…”

“…It was believed that adapting to new dentures is extremely variable, previous patient experience and gender might remain the decisive factors even more than dentist experience (28) . Some authors' opinion is that the "psychological discomfort" domain reflects psychological capacities, which highlights the significance of the dentist-patient relationship and has greater impact than physical aspects.…”