Dental fear and satisfaction with dental services in Switzerland.

Armfield, Jason M; Enkling, Norbert; Wolf, Christian A; Ramseier, Christoph Andreas (2014). Dental fear and satisfaction with dental services in Switzerland. Journal of public health dentistry, 74(1), pp. 57-63. American Association of Public Health Dentists 10.1111/j.1752-7325.2012.00368.x

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OBJECTIVES

Dental satisfaction is associated with continuity of dental care, compliance with dentist advice, and positive health outcomes. It is expected that people with higher dental fear might have less dental satisfaction because of more negative dental experiences. The objective of this study was to examine satisfaction and reasons for satisfaction with dental practitioners in Switzerland and variations by dental fear.

METHODS

A national sample of 1,129 Swiss residents aged 15-74 (mean = 43.2 years) completed a personal interview at their home with questions assessing dental fear, dental service use, general satisfaction with their dentist, and reasons for satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

RESULTS

Overall, 47.9 percent of participants responded that they were satisfied with their dentist and 47.6 percent that they were very satisfied. Satisfaction differed significantly by gender, language spoken, region of residence, and educational attainment. Greater dental fear was significantly associated with greater dissatisfaction with the dentist. The percentage of people who were very satisfied with the dentist ranged from 56.0 percent among people with no fear to 30.5 percent for participants with "quite a lot" of fear but was higher (44.4 percent) for people who stated that they were "very much" afraid of the dentist. The most common reasons attributed for satisfaction with dentists were interpersonal characteristics of the dentist and staff. People with "quite a lot" of fear were found to endorse these sentiments least.

CONCLUSIONS

Although higher dental fear was associated with more dissatisfaction with the dentist, the level of satisfaction among fearful individuals in Switzerland is still high.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

04 Faculty of Medicine > School of Dental Medicine > Department of Prosthodontics [discontinued]
04 Faculty of Medicine > School of Dental Medicine > Department of Periodontology

UniBE Contributor:

Enkling, Norbert, Ramseier, Christoph Andreas

Subjects:

600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health

ISSN:

0022-4006

Publisher:

American Association of Public Health Dentists

Language:

English

Submitter:

Eveline Carmen Schuler

Date Deposited:

15 Jan 2015 09:34

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:39

Publisher DOI:

10.1111/j.1752-7325.2012.00368.x

PubMed ID:

22970925

Uncontrolled Keywords:

dental anxiety, population survey, satisfaction

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.61683

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/61683

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