Patient satisfaction with dental care services - Essay Example

Infact, current core of modern marketing involves targeting consumer satisfaction because it is only through customer satisfaction that organizations can thrive, survive and grow. Dental service too like any other organization is concerned with consumer satisfaction or patient satisfaction. There is enough evidence to show that patient compliance, adherence to dentist and improved outcomes of treatment are related to patient satisfaction like in any other healthcare sector. Specifically, in dental services, a patient may need to meet the dentist several times, because many procedures are done in several sittings and can cause pain, distress and financial burden.

Thus, it is only through patient satisfaction, that a patient can be made to come back to the same dentist. In this essay, patient satisfaction with dental care services with be discussed through review of suitable literature. Studies pertaining to consumer satisfaction were first done in 1960s and since there more than 15,000 articles have been published in this regard (Newsome and Wright, 1999a). According to Patterson et al (1997; cited in Newsome and Wright, 1999a), "the satisfied customer is an indispensable means of creating a sustainable advantage in the competitive environment.

" In the terrain of health care, consumer satisfaction has been widely recognized and is considered as a recognition of quality. Such a widespread importance for consumer satisfaction has occurred because of recognition of the need for involvement of the consumer in the process of health care. (Tuominene, and Tuominene, 1998). In health care system, clinical outcome of high quality is directly dependent on the level of compliance to treatment regimens, which in turn is dependent on patient compliance.

A patient who is satisfied is compliant with appointments and treatments advised and hence, high quality in health care cannot be achieved without