Dentists' attitudes toward frustrating patient visits: relationship to satisfaction and malpractice complaints

Abstract

A 22-item questionnaire measuring physician frustration in communicating with patients was adapted to dentists, and its reliability and validity assessed, in a sample of 289 English dental surgeons in general practice in Greater Manchester. Subscales were derived assessing the concepts of unpleasant dentist feelings, lack of communication, patient non-compliance, patient control, and practice organization with Cronbach's alpha ranging from 0.59 to 0.77. Three of five subscale scores (unpleasant feelings, lack of communication, and practice organization) were significantly greater for dentists who had official malpractice complaints to insurers. Similarly, all five subscores were greater for dentists who reported larger numbers of unsatisfactory visits and expressed greater dissatisfaction with dental practice.