Comparison of the Amount of Time Allocated by General Dentists and Senior Dental Students to Obtain the History of the Patient’s Present Illness

Background and aim: Gathering information about the patient's present illness by allocating adequate time to detect the main reason of referral is of utmost importance. This is mostly related to the manner of communication and interaction with the patient and active listening to his/her statements. Registering the information related to the illness and its history has an effective role in patient satisfaction, treatment outcomes, and dental expenses and even in lawsuits against practitioners. Therefore, the present study aimed to compare the average time allocated by general dentists and senior dental students of the dental school of Tehran University of Medical Sciences to obtain the history of the patient's present illness during 2012-2013. Materials and methods: In this cross-sectional study, 60 senior dental students of the dental school of Tehran University of Medical Sciences and 60 general dentists that had been graduated at least five years ago were selected. Each of them randomly selected three patients and recorded the patients' demographics such as age, gender, education level, and the chief complaint or the main reason of the patient's visit. The duration of the patient's statements regarding the present illness and its history was recorded in seconds in the designed questionnaire. Afterwards, the data were analyzed using T-test and Mann-U-Whitney, Kendall-tau and Chi-square tests. Results: The average interview time in the students and dentists groups was 24.41±9.17 seconds and 27.9±7.82 seconds, respectively, which were significantly different according to T-test (p=0.003). Generally, the longest allocated time equaled 49 seconds, while the shortest interview duration was 6 seconds. Conclusion: According to the results of the present study, it seems that dentists do not allocate the necessary and adequate time to gather information about the chief complaint and the history of the patient's reason of referral to guide them towards the correct diagnosis and suitable treatment method, and even the passage of time and the level of experience have no effect on this issue.