Patients’ trust in dentists and patients’ compliance with treatment can improve the outcomes of diseases. The lack of trust in dentistry and patients’ and parents’ non-compliance may decrease the results of dental treatment and prevention. The aim of the research was to study patients’ trust in dentists and paedodontists, and patients’ and parents’ compliance with dentists’ recommendations for them and their children. 1483 adults were questioned, 745 of them were parents of 1-6-year-olds. Visual analogue scale (VAS) was used to measure the patients’ trust in dentists (0 – no trust, 10 – absolute trust). Questions were aimed at the issue of patients’ adherence to dentists’ recommendations. The mean values with standard deviations (M±ϭ), frequencies (%) of answers with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated. Student’s t-test was used to assess the differences at p-value <0.05.The patients’ trust in dentists was high; the mean mark was 8.13±1.23 according to VAS. However, only about a half of the patients were ready to follow the treatment plan (49.1%, CI 46.6%-51.6%); to go for additional examinations (23.7%, CI 21.5%-25.9%); to change their life-styles in accordance with preventive recommendations (29.2%, CI 26.9%-31.5%). Every fourth (24.5%, CI 22.3%-26.7%) adult continued to brush teeth once a day. The majority (97.2%, CI 96.4%-98.0%) of the parents declared their trust in pedodontists. However, only 70.7% (CI 67.4%-74.0%) parents agreed with the dental treatment plan for their children, 21.3% (CI 18.4%-24.2%) implemented all recommendations. The parents preferred to follow one-two recommendations for their children: tooth brushing twice a day (41.9%, CI 38.4%-45.4%), restricting sweets consumption (36.4%, CI 32.9%-39.9%), using fluorides (43.5%, CI 39.9%-47.1%), or visiting a dentist for prevention (61.3%, CI 57.8%-64.8%). The adults declared high level of trust in dentists and pedodontists; however, their compliance with the dental treatment plan and implementation of preventive recommendations for them and their children were significantly lower.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)722-731
JournalJournal of International Pharmaceutical Research
Volume11
Issue number1
StatePublished - 2019

    Scopus subject areas

  • Medicine(all)

    Research areas

  • dental patients, trust, compliance, parents, children, treatment, prevention

ID: 49043493