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EVALUATION OF THE PATIENTS' SATISFACTION WITH PRIVATE DENTAL CLINICS SERVICES: A QUESTIONNAIRE-BASED STUDY.

OBJECTIVE
The aim: To evaluate patient satisfaction with dental care services at Iraqi private dental units.


PATIENTS AND METHODS
Materials and methods: Online questionnaires were sent to 1600 Iraqi people. The questionnaires were composed of four sections: the first section was involved with gathering the demographic information of the participants, and the remaining three sections consisted of twenty-one questions to evaluate the responders' satisfaction with regard to the dentist, treatment, and the dental clinic.


RESULTS
Results: The final total of responses was 427 after using the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The distribution of the participants according to the obtained demographic data was as follows: (male 45.4% and female 54.6%), (above 40y 41.7% and less or equal to 40y 58.3%), (employed 52.9% and not employed 47.1%), (postgraduate 29.3%, college graduate 55.7%, and undergraduate 15%), and (enough and exceeding income 4.9%, enough income 51.8%, and less than enough income 43.3%). Only the educational level and the income level appeared to have an effect on the degree of patient satisfaction. Most of the participants complained about the high treatment fees and the long wait in the clinic before receiving treatment.


CONCLUSION
Conclusions: The current study is the first conducted in Iraq to assess dental patient satisfaction. The satisfaction levels differed among the participants, which indicates the need to benefit from the evaluation of patients to improve the quality of treatment service in dental clinics. Future research should be conducted to precisely identify the factors that lead to increased satisfaction of dental patients with their treatment experiences.