A suggested assessment scale for parental dental care satisfaction: Peri- and post-procedural composite data of children and parents

There is a lack of knowledge on the relationship between parental satisfaction and the quality of dental treatment that their children get. Based on the findings of the study, it has been determined that about one-third of all children under the age of ten who need dental treatment require general anaesthesia. This is due to the fact that their parents are dissatisfied with the conventional approaches that are being taken towards them. SatTot is a multidimensional evaluation tool that takes into consideration wait times, parental characteristics (such as education level), and child-related aspects (such as age and post-surgery recovery) as major predictors. The purpose of this research was to construct and analyse SatTot on a multidimensional scale. By taking into account all of these significant aspects, this instrument would be able to determine the amount of contentment experienced by parents. We used a historical observational method in order to study the data that was collected from 119 children, ranging in age from three to ten years old, who visited Queen Alia Military Hospital for extractions, exodontia replacements, pulp therapy, or replacements during the months of January 2023 and December 2024. A mix of controlled family follow-ups, professional notes, and electronic medical records (the Hakeem system) was used to gather the data. There was a good level of satisfaction overall, as shown by the findings (mean SatTot = 3.28 ± 1.12), and the model was able to explain 85.2% of the variance in satisfaction (R² = 0.852, p < 0.001). Based on the statistical analysis, it was determined that the level of education of the parents was the most significant positive predictor (β = 0.43, p lower than 0.001). Following that, the age of the kid was determined (β = 0.38, p < 0.001), and both social activity (² = 0.29) and eating (² = 0.22) were used to evaluate the improvements that occurred following the operation. Both of these variables had a p-value that was less than 0.001. When compared to waiting periods, which had a statistically negative impact (β = -0.37, p < 0.001), each 30-day delay resulted in a 0.12 point drop in happiness. Although our findings were consistent with those of other research that investigated socioeconomic difficulties (for example, Almeida et al., 2021), they were distinct from those of locations that had effective appointment systems (for example, Patel et al., 2023) in terms of the cultural and organizational disparities that existed between the two groups. The reliability of the SatTot scale in real-life settings was determined to be fairly high, as shown by the Cronbach's α coefficient, which was 0.891. Through the reduction of wait times, the facilitation of communication between parents with less dental knowledge and their children's dentists, and the standardization of the process by which children recover from surgical procedures, we were able to enhance the dental care that is provided to children. The findings of this research underline the need for having a wide variety of happiness assessments that are culturally appropriate in order to enhance family-centred treatment in paediatric dentistry.