Infrastructure and management quality of private dental practices in Khartoum, Sudan. The dental practitioners' perspective.

Abstract

Background: The oral health status of the Sudanese population shows a high prevalence of untreated carious lesions, periodontal disease, and lifestyle-related risk factors. With the deteriorated and limited public dental services, the private dental sector became the main dental care provider in Khartoum. Evaluation of the private dental sector and discovering the challenges that facing the dentists are necessary to correct the defects and assure an optimal service quality. Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was performed on a sample of 190 practicing dentists in Khartoum. The questionnaire was developed to gathers information about the dentist’s general information that reflects their professional experience in private clinics and toward some common issues related to private clinics. Their perspective toward their clinic’s readiness and their basic clinical dental skills were assessed using a satisfaction rating questions. Data were analyzed using SPSS 22.0 and Microsoft Office Excel 2010 software. Results: From a total of 136 clinics, 190 dentists participated and approached to fill the questionnaire (71.1% females and 28.9% males). The overall average of the clinics' settings assessment is as follows; 3.7% ‘poor’, 18.6% ‘fair’, 50.3% ‘good’, and 27.3% ‘excellent’ while clinics materials and equipment average scores were 6.3% ‘poor’, 19.8% ‘fair’, 48.1% ‘good’, and 25.7% ‘excellent’. The average results of dentists’ skills evaluation of all disciplines were; ‘excellent’ (20.4%), ‘good’ (35.2%), ‘fair’ (13.5%), ‘poor’ (4.1%), and ‘unfamiliar’ (26.8%). The most common reasons that render dentists to quit a good dental clinic were low payment compared with the clinic’s income and transportation difficulties. Participating dentists considered that insufficient training and poor materials and instrument quality as the main factors of suboptimum treatment results. 57% of the participants agreed that dental insurance improved the quality of dental service. Conclusions: As a whole, the clinic settings and equipment which are evaluated as ‘good’ and ‘excellent’ are more than those evaluated as ‘poor’ and ‘fair’. The participants reported more proportion of ‘excellent’ to ‘good’ results in providing simple and common procedures. Many dentists were ‘unfamiliar’ with advanced or expensive procedures. From the practitioner's perspective; insufficient training and poor materials and instrument quality are the main reasons for suboptimal treatment results. Low payment compared with the clinic’s income and transportation difficulties were the major factors that affect the dentists' job continuation in particular private practice. 43.2% of the participants did not agree that dental insurance improved the quality of dental service. Keywords: Private Practices, Dental services, Quality of materials and instruments, Treatment Quality, Dental insurance, Sudan.