QUALITY OF DENTAL-CARE - THE VIEW OF REGULAR ATTENDERS

Patients' perceptions play an important role in assessing the quality of dental treatment. This study investigated 56 possible quality aspec ts on their importance as judged by regular attenders. A nationwide sa mple of 5000 Dutch people was contracted, 1328 persons meeting our sel ection criteria filled out the questionnaire and responded. The result s show that hygiene of instruments and the availability of the dentist in case of emergency were considered the most important. It was concl uded that in general these patients judged technical and functional as pects of dental care to be of more importance than communicative and i nformative aspects. Differences in perceptions were found according to sex and, to a lesser extent, to education, means of insurance and pla ce of residence. But, on the whole, response patterns were homogeneous .