Dentist-Patient Relationship, Patient Perceptions Towards Dentist and Dental Practice In Khammam

Introduction: The dentist-patient relationship is the heart of successful dentistry.The natnre of dentist patient interaction is most likely the major determinant of satis faction by patients. Objective: To determine the criteria considered by patients while selecting dentists.To assess the perception of patients towards dentists.To explore the patients current views of dentist, dentist behavior and dental practice. Methodology: A questionnaire survey was conducted in khammam. 150 dental patients of different dental clinics in khammam were randomly surveyed. Each one of the patients was given a questionnaire from to complete it and they were collected back and data is analysed by the Statistical package of social sciences. Results: 78.67% are satisfied with their dentists, 91.33% are confident about the quality of the treatment provided by their dentists. 85.33% rated the environment of the clinic as good; 91.33% are confident about the quality of treatment provided at the clinic;50.67% reported that clinics are using latest equipments of dentistry.98.97% reported that their dentist explains about the treatment procedure before he/she performs.61.33% reported that very expensive treatment costs bothers them most. Conclusion: patients are overwhelmingly satisfied with their dentist. They value their caring attributes, friendliness,competence and professionalism. Introduction Dent is ts are known to be profess ionals. Professionalism involves many professional responsibilities, such as commitment to professional competence, honesty with patients, patient confidentiality, maintaining appropriate relations with patients etc, which influence public’s trust in its physicians and dentists.(5) Heart of successful dentistry is in ”DentistPatient Relationship”, which is the major determinant of satisfaction among patients and also an important factor in dental anxiety.(1) Now-a-days patients are more informed ,sophisticated, have more awareness about dental aspects, demand good quality services, their expectations are high and satisfying them is very difficult.(1) It has been found that when expectation of patients are met, satisfaction increases which in turn affects their behavior , improves oral health habits and influences better use of dental services.(1) Patients mostly demand good quality services which increases trust among patients, which strengthens the dentist-patient relationship.(1) The key to achieving and ensuring good quality services is to meet or exceed patient’s expectations about the service. Dental service quality consists of 1) ensuring oral health , 2)ful f i l l ing pat ients desires,3)satisfying their needs,4)providing optimal solutions regarding function ,aesthetics and maintainence in a most acceptable procedure that would cause the least possible harm or inconvenience to the patients.(4) Four quality dimensions consist of expectations regarding assurance, reliability, responsiveness, and empathy. (4) This good quality service builds trust among patients in dentist. Trust in dentist comes from a variety of personality, work, and scientific activity attributes. However, many studies emphasize the importance of confidentiality and communication skills, which were reported to be one of the most important qualities among dentist’s personality attributes.(5) Dentist’s ability to communicate clearly and effectively is one of the underlying factors assuring a successful dentist-patient relationship and key to all outcome of the dental practice.(5) Although dentists are still highly regarded and widely trusted by the majority of the population, many professional responsibilities makes being a reliable WebmedCentral > Research articles Page 2 of 27 WMC004029 Downloaded from http://www.webmedcentral.com on 25-Feb-2013, 01:57:59 PM dentist challenging. Professionals are to be expected to be not only communicative , emphatic, respecting patients confidentiality, maintaining appropriate relations with patients etc, but also be committed to lifelong learning and be responsible for maintaining the medical knowledge ,clinical and team skills necessary for provision of quality care.95) Understanding dentist’s expectations and perceptions helps to identify those core qualities that lead to patient’s compliance and treatment success.(5) The main objective of this survey is to know the patients perceptions towards dentist , dentist behavior and dental practice; their criteria about selecting dentists.