Measuring patient satisfaction with dental care

This paper describes development of a 19-item self-administered Dental Satisfaction Questionnaire (DSQ). Item and factor analyses supported construction and separate scoring of 5 scales (Access. Availability/Convenience, Cost, Pain, and Quality) representing major sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction with dental care providers and services. A global access scale and an overall dental satisfaction index were also constructed. Scale scores are sufficiently reliable to be used to compare different groups of patients or to study one group over time. Several lines of evidence support the validity of scale scores. Taken together, the results suggest that the DSQ will be useful in general population studies of dental care attitudes, and that dentists may do a better job than physicians in satisfying their patients.