Introduction: No dental patient satisfaction questionnaires have been validated in Spain.
Objective: To validate in Spain a translated version of the Dental Satisfaction Questionnaire.
Methods: A consecutive sample of 217 patients attending the dental clinic of the University of Valencia was selected. The internal consistency of the questionnaire was analysed using Cronbach's alpha and the internal structure using principal components analysis. Its reproducibility was tested both by using the test-retest method with 31 patients randomly selected from the sample and by analysis using the absolute agreement intraclass correlation coefficient.
Results: Cronbach's alpha for the questionnaire was 0.56. Seven principal components explain 60% of the variance. Test-retest obtained an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.92 and the subscales obtained values higher than 0.7.
Discussion: The internal consistency of the scale is acceptable. The internal consistency of the pain management subscale is higher than that of the others. The original structure of five subscales is partially confirmed in our version because of quality and access subscales. The reproducibility is very good. Some items of Dental Satisfaction Questionnaire that show low consistency measure expectations that would have little effect on satisfaction scores.
Conclusions: The Dental Satisfaction Questionnaire in Spanish can be considered an instrument for studying patient satisfaction in Spain as it has proved viable, has acceptable internal consistency and excellent reproducibility and covers different dimensions of the concept of satisfaction, such as pain management, accessibility, quality, availability/convenience and cost.