The dentist's communicative role in prosthodontic treatment.
OBJECTIVE
Dentist-patient verbal communication is important for patient satisfaction. The aim of this study was to investigate the dentist's role in the provider-patient relationship as to verbal communication and patient satisfaction with the treatment outcome in prosthetic dentistry. The dentist-specific properties were analyzed in random coefficient modeling.


METHODS
Sixty-one dentist-patient pairs were followed through 61 prosthodontic treatment periods. The treatment performed was fixed prosthodontic restorations on teeth or implants. One encounter at the end of each treatment period was tape recorded. The verbal communication on the recordings was analyzed using an interaction analysis instrument. Various measures of communication were used, summarizing the variational pattern of verbal interaction. Two different aspects of the patient satisfaction concept were used as dependent variables: cure (overall patient satisfaction with prosthodontic treatment), and care (patient satisfaction with a particular dental encounter during the prosthodontic treatment period).


RESULTS
In the multilevel model for care, the dentist variance was mostly explained by the communication variables. In the cure model, there was no dentist variance. The communication patterns used by the dentists thus influenced patient satisfaction in a short-term perspective but not in an intermediate perspective.


CONCLUSIONS
Patient evaluation of the care during an encounter is dependent on the dentist's verbal communication activity during the encounter, but this communication has no impact on the patient evaluation of overall prosthetic treatment outcome in the intermediate time perspective.
Sondell
Katarina
K
Department of Prosthetic Dentistry, Institute for Postgraduate Dental Education Center, Jönköping, Sweden. katarina.sondell@lj.se
Palmqvist
Sigvard
S
Söderfeldt
Björn
B
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003142:Communication; D015921:Dental Implants; D017266:Dental Prosthesis; D003812:Dentist-Patient Relations; D003830:Denture, Partial, Fixed; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D012737:Sex Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D014743:Videotape Recording
D015921:Dental Implants