Dental care provision in private clinics: an introductory explanation for dental manpower estimation and dentistry educational needs assessment

ABSTRACT

Having an estimate of needed workforce is necessary for workforce planning. Time and work study is a means to provide basic data in this regard. To determine delivery time for common type of dental care, dentists' working time in Tehran. A cross-sectional study was conducted among the general dentists who work in private clinics in Tehran. 100 dentists were chosen randomly. They filled out a self-administered questionnaire. In order to determine the time spent on each service by the dentists, the median was calculated as the central index. The list of dental treatments was determined by median time to deliver each of them. The useful working time was 90000 minutes for each dentist during a year. The results of this study can be used in estimating dental workforce and reforming dental educational programs