"It's a waste of time coming here, better go to private clinics with wider options for treatment": patient's perception on dental services provided in Fiji

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Publication date
2022-09
Author
Nair, R.D.
Mohammadnezhad, Masoud
Keyword
Patient's perception
Dental clinic
Quality of services
Fiji
Rights
© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1. 0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
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openAccess

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Abstract
Oral health can influence the quality of an individual's life. Patient's perception of the service plays a vital role in understanding the reasons as to why a patient may be satisfied or dissatisfied with the service that they accessed at a dental setting. As no studies have been done in Fiji until now, this study aimed to explore the perceptions of patients on services provided by the largest dental clinic in the Central/Eastern division in Fiji. A qualitative study was used to collect data from patients who visited the Colonial War Memorial Hospital (CWMH) dental clinic in Suva Fiji from 5th August to 31st October, 2020. All patients above the age of 18 of both genders and from any ethnicity who visited the CWMH dental clinic during the period of data collection were included the study. A total of 25 participants were interviewed for this study using the in-depth interview method till data saturation occurred. A semi-structured open-ended questionnaire was used to collect data using face-to-face in-depth interviews. The data were transcribed and analyzed using manual thematic analysis process to gather the themes and sub-themes for the results. A total of 25 patients were interviewed, with a majority (n = 14) being men and 15 were of I-Taukei background. Five themes emerging from data analysis include: Waiting time before treatment, Cost of Treatment, Accessibility of services, Privacy and confidentiality and Range of treatment options. The patients had an expectation to get the best treatment but face many hurdles while trying to get the treatment that they expect. The shortfalls on the part of this dental clinic caused an onset of negative perception among its users. This study shows an overall dissatisfaction with regards to services delivery among the patients who use the CWMH dental clinic for dental care purposes. The decision makers need to look into the genuine concerns that have been raised by patients in order to create improvements in services delivery and create an array of satisfaction for its patients.
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10454/19172
Version
Published version
Citation
Nair RD and Mohammadnezhad M (2022) 'It's a waste of time coming here, better go to private clinics with wider options for treatment: patient's perception on dental services provided in Fiji'. BMC Health Services Research. 22(1): Article number 1144.
Link to publisher’s version
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-08543-9
Type
Article
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