title: Patients' satisfaction and prevalence of complications on surgical extraction of third molar.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To study patients' satisfaction and prevalence of complications in surgical extraction of impacted third molar by senior dentists and recently graduated dentists in a university dental clinic.
  
  
  METHODS
  Patients who had impacted third molar extraction in a university dental clinic by two associate dentists who had <2 years of experience and two senior dentists who had >15 years of experience were evaluated in this study. Patients' age, sex, history of pericoronitis, tooth extracted, and radiographic assessment of the impacted tooth were recorded. Immediately after suture removal, the patients were invited to indicate their satisfaction on a Likert scale of 1-5.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 546 patients received extraction, and 251 patients were operated by associate dentists. Patient satisfaction was higher among those who had noncomplicated surgery (P=0.007), short treatment time (P<0.001), and had no postsurgical emergency appointments (P<0.001). The prevalence of seeking postsurgical emergency appointments was 9.2%. The reasons were severe pain (4.8%), swelling (2.6%), bleeding (2.4%), alveolar osteitis (0.9%), paresthesia (0.9), and trismus (0.5%). The prevalence of postsurgical complication(s) in associate dentists and senior dentists was 11.6% and 7.1%, respectively (P=0.050). The mean satisfaction scores for associate dentists and senior dentists were 4.17 and 3.95, respectively (P=0.002).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although a higher rate of postsurgical complications was observed among the patients treated by the recently graduated dentists, their patients' satisfaction scores were higher than that of the senior dentists. Around 9% of patients attended postsurgical emergency appointments, and their common reason was severe pain.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Crystal Ty
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Shinan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yiu Yan
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Leung
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Samantha Ky
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Cissy C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Tsang
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Chun-Hung
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Chu
keywords: complications; dental satisfaction; dentistry; extraction; third molar