Abstract

Background and Aim: Dental services are costly and sensitive services that constitute a significant portion of healthcare costs in developing countries. Unfortunately, spending alone cannot be guaranteed to receive dentist services with high technical quality. The purpose of this study was to identify and prioritize factors affecting the quality of dental services. Methods: This is an exploratory study and was conducted at the Army 600 dental center during Jan 2016 – Sep 2017. The study population consisted of 200 dentists from the Army 600 Dental Center. Data collection in the qualitative phase involved using semi-structured interviews and then using the FAHP questionnaire in the quantitative phase. To analyze the qualitative data, Atlas.ti 5.2 software was used and FAHP solver2015 software was used to analyze the fuzzy hierarchy. Results: The results showed that factors affecting the quality of dental services based on priority include therapeutic factors, human factors, structural factors, education and research, and patient-based factors. The most important indicators of therapeutic factors were high quality treatment, specialization, treatment and health care and infection control, and monitoring and evaluation. The most important indicators of human factors were personal dentist's characteristics, dental team competencies, dental interactions, motivation and job satisfaction of the team of dentistry and professional ethics. The most important indicators of structural factors include tariffs and ability to pay fees, factors of delivery, proper management, performance indicators and management of dental facilities and prevention. The most important indicators of education and research included patient education, dental team training and research. Finally, the characteristics of patient-based factors included patient satisfaction, patient collaboration and participation, and attention to the patient. Conclusion: The technical quality of dental services is affected by several factors. Improving the technical quality of dental services through the proposed strategies can have an impact on the level of oral and dental health in the community. © 2018 Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences. All Rights Reserved.