The effects of the quality of dental care service by factors on the patient satisfaction and service value

요인별 치과 의료서비스 질이 환자만족과 서비스 가치에 미치는 영향

The purpose of this study is to forecast patient satisfaction and service value through the staged regression analysis of the relation between each factor and its satisfaction and service value, following the measurement of the quality of dental care service that patients recognize. And a self-administered survey was used for this study. The subjects of this survey were 394 outpatients of dental clinics located in K city in the period from Dec. 5, 2004 to Feb. 19, 2005, the questionnaire was composed of a total of 31 questions to measure the quality of overall dental care service(22 questions), the patient satisfaction(6 questions) and the service value(3 questions). The 7 points Likert scale ranging from "very poor"(1-point) to "very high"(7-point) was used for these questions The results of study could be summarized as follows: 1. The most useful index to predict patient satisfaction turned out to be "internal environment", followed by "treatment process and waiting time", "dentist", "external environment", and "dental hygienist". 2. The service value had a significant effect on the "internal environment", "dentist", "treatment process and waiting time". 3. The most useful index to predict the service value turned out to be "treatment process and waiting time", followed by "internal environment" and "dentist". Today, the quality of dental care service is becoming a prime concern since it is directly connected to a matter of survival of medical service organizations. Dental clinics desperately need patient-oriented marketing strategies in order to actively cope with changing medical environment. They also need to thoroughly examine possible measures to maximize the service value by establishing a variety of service strategies which can promote service quality that patients recognize.