Evaluation of patient's satisfaction of departments in Islamic Azad University Dental branch, in 2009

Patient satisfaction is one of the most important factors to improve the quality of educational centers thus increasing patient referral and promote practical training of the students. To now in this faculty no such study has been done, so this research aimed to evaluate patients’ satisfaction from dental care given in different departments of Tehran faculty of dentistry, Islamic Azad University year1387. In this cross sectional study 1500 subjects who referred consequently were selected from clinics with the same proportional ratio of patient referral to every clinic. After explanation of project to every subject through interview, satisfaction was estimated by 13 questions about distant way, waiting time, treatment duration ….with a range of 3 options of completely satisfied, relatively satisfied, dissatisfied and ranking of 0, 1, and 2. Total rank less than 1/3 was known as dissatisfied, between 1/3 – 2/3 as relatively satisfied, and higher than 2/3 as satisfied. The role of related factors was subjected to chi-square statistics. 71% of all subjects spoke out satisfaction, 27.5% were relatively satisfied, and 1.5% dissatisfied. The prevalence of dissatisfaction in the population was estimated from 26.7% to 31.3%.The most dissatisfaction was related to removable denture patients:64.7% and the least was in oral surgery clinic: 13.5% (p<0.05).The most dissatisfaction factor was long distance and waiting room ambiance but the least dissatisfaction was about student behavior, hygiene and professors behavior. The satisfaction level of patients in Tehran dental faculty of Islamic Azad University was acceptable but according to presence of dissatisfaction in patients and its consequences, appropriate improvements are recommended.