Patients’ perception about professionalism in dental practice: Experience in a southwestern tertiary institution

Abstract

Objective: When individuals have negative perceptions about dental care, they refuse to seek treatment which leads to worsened conditions. The interactions with patients attending the various dental clinics revealed some dissatisfaction with the quality of service delivered. The objective of this study was to assess the perception of the patients about the dentists and dental nurses.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted for a period of three months among old and new patients attending the Oral Diagnosis, Periodontology, Orthodontic, Oral Surgery, Conservative, Prosthetic and Paedodontic Clinics at the dental centre, University College Hospital, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. The data was collected using an English-language questionnaire and analysed using the IBM SPSS Software version 23.

Results: There were 228 participants, majority were females (55.4%) and belonged to the 56 years and above age group (20%). The patients agreed (40.6%) and strongly agreed (32.1%) that the first impression they had of their dentist affected their confidence in him/her. More than half of the patients (52.7%) reported they were particular about the physical appearance of their dentist and 84.3% preferred their dentist to be professionally dressed. Greater than half of the patients (64.1%) and almost half (46.2%) claimed that their overall experience with their dentist and dental nurse was excellent respectively.

Conclusion: It was observed that the patients were not particular about the demographics of the dentists or dental nurses but placed more emphasis on appearance, behaviour and skills which ultimately influenced their overall experience and perception.