Abstract:
Objective: To describe the expectations of walk-in patients seeking
emergency dental care out-of-hours.
Basic design Consecutive patients attending two emergency dental
clinics at weekends were interviewed prior to seeing the dentist. The
audio-recorded interview transcripts were analysed using the
'framework' method of applied qualitative data analysis.
Subjects and setting Forty-four walk-in emergency dental patients at
a community-based dental clinic and a dental hospital emergency clinic
at the weekend.
Results: In addition to symptom relief, the main desired outcome for
emergency dental patients may be informational and psychological -
especially reassurance that the problem is not serious, and reduced
uncertainty about the cause of the pain. In general, patients' stated
expectations for specific treatments (such as antibiotics, or tooth
extraction) were not absolute: rather, they implied these expectations
were conditional upon the dentist deciding they were necessary.
Conclusions: Emergency dental services some of which are still
dominantly treatment-focused, should reflect that many emergency
dental attenders want advice and reassurance as much as relief from
symptoms. This reinforces the importance of effective and sympathetic
dentist-patient communication within emergency or out-of-hours
consultations. It also implies that dentists' skills in listening, explaining
and reassuring should be captured in any patient satisfaction or
outcome measure designed for this patient group.
