ABSTRACT
Introduction: Comprehensive oral care is a service centered around the patient, and individuals who need it the most often face limited access. Patient perception acts as a guide for enhancing quality, ensuring patients' future intent to utilize the services and facilitating recommendations to others. The present study aimed to assess the patients' perception of comprehensive dental services availed at a Primary Health Center (PHC). Methods: This qualitative study was based on a phenomenological interpretive approach, and judgment sampling method was employed. A validated interview guide, developed from relevant literature was employed in the local language to conduct interviews among adults visiting the PHC, gathering their views regarding the services provided. The interviews were audio recorded on a digital voice recorder, and files were password protected. Content saturation guided the determination of the final number of participants interviewed. After translating and transcribing the interviews, thematic analysis and coding were performed using ATLAS. ti 23 for Windows. Results: A total of 12 participants were included in the study, following data saturation. Among them, there were 8(66.7%) female and 4(33.3%) male participants. Ten overarching main themes were discerned through the assigned codes, including positive views, neutral views, negative views, previous dental clinics visited, previous experience with dental treatment, treatments sought at the center, referrals, source of information about the dental center, subsequent visits and suggestions for improvement. Conclusions: The findings of this study revealed a positive patient perception of the comprehensive dental services offered at the PHC. Through insightful interviews, various strengths, and areas for improvement regarding the center and care provision were identified. These insights provide valuable suggestions that can be applied to elevate the utilization of dental services, ensuring continuous improvement in patient care.
Subject(s)
Primary Health Care , Qualitative Research , Humans , Female , Male , Adult , Middle Aged , Dental Care , PerceptionABSTRACT
Background: Ageism persists in many different societies as it is innate and subconscious in nature. Negative effects such as loneliness, mistreatment, and occupational discrimination are frequently present due to ageism. The dental students in our study were wary of the possible benefits of expensive dental care because ageism is rife in their field. There is no validated and reliable ageism scale to assess how dental students perceive ageism in India. The current study was carried out to validate the ageism scale for dental students in the Indian context. METHODS: This was a cross sectional analytical study carried out among both males and females in Manipal College of Dental Sciences, Mangalore in which the instrument was 27-item Ageism scale for dental students. Content validity was done by six subject experts. The final version was administered to 213 students/Residents of dental school. The factorability of data was confirmed with KMO = 0.61 and Bartlett's Test of Sphericity resulting in p < 0.001. RESULTS: Final PCA model resulted in 15 items and six components that together accounted for 70.37% of overall variance. The six components had reliability ranging from marginal 0.51 (Component 6) to a high of 0.81 (Component 3). As per the gender differences by component females showed less ageism than men in "non-compliance" (-0.9(-1.66-0.14), p<0.05) and "practitioner perspective" (1.43 (0.84, 2.03), p<0.01). Statistical significance was seen in Barriers/concerns in dental treatment of elderly where residents showed reversed (1.4 (0.41, 2.38), p<0.01). Urban group showed more ageism for component 'time restraint' (-0.79 (-1.57, -0.02), p<0.05. CONCLUSION: Preliminary validation resulted in 15 item scale with six components with acceptable validity of the ageism scale and could be further tested in large samples. This scale will help recognize ageism in Indian context and provide necessary information to make changes in the curriculum as required.
