Assessment of patient satisfaction of certified and non-certified private dental clinics in Athens

Abstract

Background: In recent years, the issue of quality assurance in health services has emerged in the forefront, with strong research and practical interest. In addition, there is a number of changes to health service users who nowadays have higher expectations of satisfaction, efficiency and quality of health services.

Aim: The aim of the present study is to assess the satisfaction of patients and, by extension, the quality of the services provided both in certified and non-certified private dental practices in Athens, to highlight the difference in the services provided and the areas in which it appears.

Methods: This is a quantitative study of dental patients’ satisfaction in Athens using an anonymous and self-completed questionnaire. The aggregate sample collected is 317 patients within three months of the questionnaire being shared. In particular, the sample for certified dental places was 176 patients, while the sample of non-certified dental places was 141 patients. For the statistical analysis, the SPSS program for Windows version 25 was used, and the tables were created with Microsoft Excel 2010 based on the SPSS analysis data.

Results: The results showed differences between the social level of patients, the permanent residence of the participants as well as differences in the reason for choice and visit to each dental place, while on the questions about the satisfaction of the services the differences were little. The questions with the most shared responses were those in the financial basis. Correlation coefficients did not show any statistically significant relationship between demographic characteristics and satisfaction, with the exception of the level of education of patients in certified dental clinics.

Conclusions: Although the results of the research showed little differences in the satisfaction of the patients between certified and non-certified dental clinics, these results are quite limited due to the small number of certified dental clinics in Greece. Further research is needed to produce safer conclusions.