Patient Satisfaction Survey at the Dental Human Dock Clinic of Nihon University School of Dentistry at Matsudo Hospital

[Abstract] In 2011, physical and operational changes were made to improve our institution's dental human dock clinic. The physical change was consisted of aesthetic improvements to the comprehensive checkups being performed in individual rooms. The operational changes were improved diagnostic accuracy and increased the number of tests available to patients as part of the oral dock checkup, namely, adopting a test of caries risk (testing for bacteria that cause tooth decay), an IgG antibody titer test for periodontal pathogens using blood collected from the fingertip, a bite test and a halitosis test, as well as adding more staff members to the examination team. After these improvements were implemented, we conducted a survey to assess patient satisfaction at the clinic. The survey asked patients to provide their overall impression of the clinic and to rate facilities and equipment, dental care providers, clinical tests, evaluation reports and other aspects. A 10-point scale was used to rate overall impression and a 5-point scale was used to rate all other items. Survey forms were distributed to 74 patients who received the checkup and consented to participate, of which 46 responded (response rate: 62.2%). Patients were generally very satisfied with dental care providers and clinical tests as reflected by an average overall impression rating of 7.9. However, the average rating for facilities and equipment was low at 3.76. The other aspects category received the lowest rating, with cost being rated at 2.43. We plan to improve the clinic's operations by focusing on low scoring aspects of these findings.