A pilot study was conducted with the aim to test and develop a questionnaire which covers dental patients attendance, satisfaction with dental care, oral health self-evaluation, attitudes and knowledge about oral health, before applying it to a broad population. A total of 53 adult subjects (mean age 40.1) visiting Kaunas University of Medicine dental clinics, filled in the questionnaire presented by the researchers. Statement choices to define dental care satisfaction were selected from previously used instruments for similar studies in other countries.
Results: Major difficulties in answering questions were related to using the Likert scale response alternatives. All statements concerning dental care satisfaction with the mean Likert score value below 2.0 were decided to be indicative for the importance of characteristics. According to factor analysis and distribution of the mean scores of dental care satisfaction characteristics it was decided to include no more than 8 questions in each dimension to the final version of questionnaire. In case of equal loadings of several statements in the factor analysis, the statement with lower mean score was used.
Conclusions: The use of professional terminology in questionnaire survey should be tested before applying to a broad population. The final instrument for measuring dental care satisfaction should be formed on the basis of statistical evaluation of relative importance and comparative load of different questions/statements to be included in the questionnaire.