Quality of care at a pediatric dental clinic in Ibadan, Nigeria.

BACKGROUND

The quality of healthcare has become a topical issue in recent years and the introduction of quality assurance that constitute some of the tools for change is now an important development in healthcare practice.

OBJECTIVES

This study aims at evaluating the quality of care provided at the Paediatric Dental Clinic of the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A descriptive study was conducted among 141 parents of children who attended the clinic over a 3-month period using a modified quality of care questionnaire by Ygge and Arnetz (2001).

RESULTS

Majority of the parents (93.6%) were pleased with the registration process, while 81.6% and 66.7% were satisfied with the waiting arrangements and social amenities such as light and water respectively. Ratings of the quality of care indices revealed that 50.4% and 41.1% of the parents were happy with the information process and accessibility respectively. Over 80.0% of the respondents were pleased to a great degree with the dental treatment their children received. However, 44 (31.2%) said that they felt that they could not especially/not at all contact their dentist by telephone. About a fifth, (21.2%), felt they had not especially/not at all received information about how to prevent their child's dental problem. Inability of the dentists to introduce themselves was reported by 56.8% of the parents. The mean waiting time spent before being attended was 64.9 minutes while the desired average waiting time was 20.1 minutes.

CONCLUSION

Parents were extremely satisfied with the dental treatment their children received at the UCH and had great confidence in staff competence even though they complained of long waiting time. However, there is a communication gap between the dentist, patients, and parents, since some of the dentists failed to introduce themselves and give information on prevention of dental diseases. For this reason, patients' appointments should be spread out to reduce waiting time. Furthermore, staff should introduce themselves and efforts must be made to improve health education given to parents. The dental curriculum should emphasize patient-dentist relationships.