Patients’ Satisfaction from Dental Services in Public University in Selangor, Malaysia

In an era of clinical governance and patient partnership in delivering high quality oral healthcare, it is necessary that patients’ concerns are dealt with appropriately. Degree of satisfaction is seen as contributing to patients’ commitment and compliance with the recommended treatment and therefore achieving a better clinical outcome compared to dissatisfied patient. A total of 120 dental patients aged 18 and above who received Dental Services, University Health Centre UPM during study period has been selected using a random sampling method. A self administered SERVQUAL questionnaire was used in this study. Patients’ satisfaction in this study will be determined by analyzing the gap or difference between Perception value (P), the experience encountered during the delivery of dental services minus the Expectation value (E) according to what the respondents hope or expect to receive prior to the delivery of dental services (P–E). Patients’ satisfaction is positive (satisfied) if P value–E value is more than 0 (P–E>0); and patients’ satisfaction is negative (dissatisfied) if P value–E value is less than 0 (P-E<0). A total of 120 questionnaires were distributed but only 100 respondents return the questionnaire, with a response rates of 83.33% with range of age are between 18 until 73 years old (mean±sd = 27.70±9.63). Reliability Cronbach Alpha for 22 item of expectation and 22 item of perception used in this study was 0.944 and 0.928. Female and male patients were satisfied with dental services provided and no significant different was found between patients’ satisfaction and gender. Malay were satisfied with all the SERVQUAL dimensions and Others ethnicity were not satisfied with Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy dimensions (−0.199±0.895, −0.162±0.258 and −0.013±0.448) respectively. Patients with Ph.D. were not satisfied with Responsiveness (−0.454±1.008), Assurance (−0.177±0.274) and Empathy (−0.121±0.520) dimensions studied. Overall patients’ satisfaction level of Dental Services shows a positive score of P–E (mean = 0.206±0.040). Measuring patients’ satisfaction is essential for University Health Centre as this study could provide useful information to the management of University Health Centre, UPM regarding the service performance and to understand more about patients’ socio-demographic factors that could influence patient’s satisfaction with dental care services provided.