Exploring Dentist-shopping Behaviour among Malaysian Adult Patients

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the dentist-shopping behavior of the patients attending Primary Care Unit, Faculty of Dentistry, University Malaya. Method: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 287 adults, aged 18 years old and above, attending the Primary Care Unit, Faculty of Dentistry, University Malaya. A convenience sampling was used in recruiting the sample. Patients who came with referral letter were excluded from the study. Self-administered questionnaire was used to gather information on: reason for current visit, duration of the problem, whether they have visited other clinic prior to the current visit, number of clinic they visited prior to the current visit for the same problem, the reasons they did not continue treatment at the clinic, and patients’ sociodemographic background including age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, level of education, employment status and their monthly personal salary.  The data were collected and analyzed using SPSS version 16.0. Only descriptive analysis was performed. Result: From a total of 289 respondents, 166 (57.4%) patients met the criteria of dentist-shopping behavior. The mean age of the dentist-shoppers was 35.7 ± 14.4. Majority of dentist-shoppers were females (59%), Malays (48.8%), employed (63.9%), with tertiary education (54.0%) and married (50.0%). The most frequent reason for dentist-shopping were the cost of consultation, problems in dentist-patient relationship, and the illness did not reduce after treatment. Conclusion: The prevalence of dentist-shopping behavior among adult patients attending Primary Care Unit, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya was high. The most common reason for people to shop for dentist is the cost. Further study is recommended to assess the impact of dentist-shopping behavior on patients’ oral health.