Patient Satisfaction in Military Dental Treatment Facilities

This study aimed to identify predictors of satisfaction with the dentist and hygienist in military dental clinics. Respondents completed 658,443 surveys using a standardized DoD questionnaire. Factor analysis was utilized to assess the underlying constructs ofsatisfaction and hierarchical multiple linear regression to assess the%redictive effects of the dependent variables on the three independent variables: 1) overall satisfaction with today's visit, 2) overall clinic satisfaction, 3) behavioral intent of the likelihood to return to the clinic. On a 7-point bi-polar adjective rating scale, patients' mean visit scores were 6.53 (dentist) and 6.61 (hygienist) suggesting that patients are highly satisfied. Factor analysis revealed that beliefs about care (51.5% for dentists and 46.7% for hygienists) and environment (20.1% for dentists and 26.8% for hygienists) were the most important satisfaction factors. The regression models for dentist satisfaction explained 33.8% and 31.4% of the shared variance for satisfaction with today's visit for the dentist and hygienist respectively and 34.7% and 29.1% of the variance in regards to overall satisfaction.