The relations between dental care compliance and service satisfaction of patients depending on dental hygienists' communication patterns perceived by patients

Seon-Yeong  Kim1,*   

Department of Dental Hygiene, Kwangju Women’s University

Abstract

This study aims to suggest the future direction to improve dental hygienists' competencies to communicate with patients to increase the compliance and dental service satisfaction, based on the analysis of survey data given to patients on dental hygienists' communication patterns with patients. The findings of this research is aimed to serve as the basic data for future researches on related area. A survey was conducted to ordinary people with experiences of receiving dental treatment in Gwangju and Jeonnam from July 29th 2017 to September 10th 2017. 224 copies of the questionnaire were used for final analysis. Results: The scores of each communication pattern (informative, friendly, and authoritative patterns) of dental hygienists perceived by research subjects were as follows: 3.76±0.76, 3.47±0.62, and 2.64±0.70 respectively. In the effects of communication patterns on the compliance of patients, it was found that the informative communication pattern (β=0.227, p=0.008) and friendly communication pattern (β=0.216, p=0.012) had positive (+) effects. Thus, the results of this study verified that dental hygienists' communication patterns are important elements affecting patients' compliance and their satisfaction. For the smooth patient-centered bilateral communications, it will be necessary to continuously develop educational programs related to dental hygienists' communication, and also to have continuous researches targeting patient groups for the comparison to meet dental service satisfaction.

Figures & Tables

Table 1. Credibility of research tools