Abstract
The aim of the present study was to investigate the factors responsible for the patients attendance at undergraduate dental clinics, the degree of satisfaction patients have after the treatment is done and the amount of trust the patients have towards their treating dental students. The cross sectional qualitative survey study was conducted among male and female patients, attending the College of Dentistry, King Saud University Hospital, Riyadh Saudi Arabia, at the undergraduate training institute from August 2019 to February 2020. The patients were randomly selected who were attending hospital for dental treatments in undergraduate course with 3rd, 4th and 5th year students. The questionnaire consisted of 17 closed ended questions mainly divided into section one for demographic data and section two for undergraduate clinics method of booking, type of procedures, method of contacting the student clinic and previous experience with student clinics. The last section enquired about participants beliefs related to student clinics, including, satisfaction level and reasons for dissatisfaction, would they prefer repeating the experience, must students be supervised and are students able to manage emergencies. Data was analyzed Descriptive statistics (means, standard deviations, percentages and frequencies), One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), post hoc tukey and Chi square test to compare association between categorical variables. 268 out of 400 responses were completed (67%). 67.2% of participants were males, while 32.8% were females. 42.9% were aged between 18-28 years and 23.1% were aged between 29-39 years, however, 30.2% of participants were students and 27.6% were governmental employees. In addition, 38.1% had bachelor's degrees while 29.1% completed secondary; 43.3% were single, 52.6% were married. Two-thirds of the patients were satisfied with the dental treatments provided by students under supervision and the main reason for dissatisfaction was the delay and long duration of treatment. A majority agreed that they would seek treatment from dental students again and one-third of patients believed that students do not need supervision at all times. Further studies with larger sample size and different undergraduate institutes should be performed to validate these findings.