Factors Influencing Patient Satisfaction and Loyalty as Perceived by Dentists and Their Patients.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to identify the key aspects of patients' dental care experience that influenced their self-perceived satisfaction and loyalty. Also examined was the agreement between patients and dentists regarding these factors. METHODS: Questionnaires were administered to 1121 patients and 77 dentists, focusing on demographic information and 15 selected items related to the patients' last dental visit. Descriptive and linear regression analyses were conducted. RESULTS: The study included participants from 41 practices. Factors significantly influencing satisfaction and loyalty included location convenience, treatment quality, trust in dentists' decisions, visit frequency satisfaction, clear treatment explanations, dentist's interest in symptoms, patient-dental personnel attachment, and dentist's knowledge of the patient and their medical records. While overall agreement between patients and dentists was high, some areas exhibited notable disagreement. CONCLUSIONS: The findings mostly align with existing literature, underscoring the importance of communication, trust, and a personal patient-dentist relationship in promoting satisfaction and loyalty. However, they also show that local, generally not reported factors might be at play, which necessitates dentists' awareness and consideration of the local context for optimal outcomes.

Essential new informations for the clinical recognition of COVID-19 infection and the prevention possibilities of healthcare personnel working in the head and neck region / [A COVID­19-vírusfertozés klinikai felismerését szolgáló új információk és a fej-nyaki régióban dolgozó egészségügyi személyzet védekezésének lehetoségei]

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic probably started in China in 2019 and is influencing the whole healthcare system worldwide. As several healthcare interventions are essential even during pandemics, it is necessary for professionals working in such fields to get up-to-date information about the virus and its aspects that can influence patient care and suggested actions. The current article is a literature review, in which the authors elaborated the recently available scientific articles with their relevancy for clinical interventions as primary factor. The processed articles emphasize that during interventions in the head and neck region, especially when using rotating instruments, it is of utmost importance for all personnel being present at the time of intervention to wear full protection, including disposable medical uniforms, glasses and special masks. These single-use items have to be changed after each intervention and the whole team has to be educated for this process in advance. In order to avoid cross-contamination and infection of personnel during intervention, it is essential to keep all work-safety and infection-control precautions extremely strictly. Orv Hetil. 2020; 161(17): 660­666.

Introducing career skills for dental students as an undergraduate course at the University of Szeged, Hungary.

BACKGROUND: In the last three decades there is a growing recognition in the dental profession that dental education must go beyond teaching the technicalities of dentistry and include professionalism and communication skills that the future dentist may need. Such skills are best taught in a student-centered way. Literature suggests that student-centered elements are difficult to introduce in traditional, teacher-centered curricula. This is especially true in post-communist countries where higher education was under strict state control for decades. The aim of the piece of research presented here was to investigate how difficult it is to introduce a student-centered career skills course in a traditionally teacher-centered dental curriculum. METHODS: Considering the needs of our final-year dental students and Super's model of career development, we created an undergraduate curricular career skills course running for two semesters in two languages (Hungarian and English). The primary aim of the course is to help students with their career expectations and develop their identity as a professional workforce. The secondary aim is to teach skills that students can use when applying for a job. At the end of the semesters, we assessed our students' satisfaction with various aspects of the course by using a questionnaire. Results were analyzed item-wise and according to the main aspects of the course (i.e., groups of items organized around a particular aspect). RESULTS: General satisfaction with the course was high, and practical skills training (such as CV and motivation letter writing) got the highest scores. From the answers it appears that the students were the least comfortable with having to deal with their personal values and preferences. CONCLUSIONS: While it is common for universities to offer various forms of career intervention, to our knowledge, no other university offers a curricular career skills course specifically for dental students. Our student-centered course designed in a problem-based learning framework worked even in a traditionally teacher-centered educational environment, where university students are rarely encouraged to be active participants in courses. By sharing our experience, we would like to encourage our fellow dental educators working in similar environments to devise and offer such courses.