Development of a patient measure of satisfaction with the dentist: the Dental Visit Satisfaction Scale.

Although patient satisfaction has been studied in the traditional medical context, patient satisfaction with the dentist has received only minor attention. This paper reports the development of a 10-item Dental Visit Satisfaction Scale. This scale was designed to assess patient satisfaction with the dentist in the context of a specific visit. It provides three subscales--Information-Communication, Understanding-Acceptance, and Technical Competence--as well as an overall measure of satisfaction. Satisfactory internal consistency was obtained for all scale measures, and one assessment of construct validity is reported. Potential clinical and research applications are discussed.