Dental Care Provision In Private Clinics: An Introductory Explanation For Dental Manpower Estimation And Dentistry Educational Needs Assessment

Abstract

Background: Having an estimate of needed workforce is necessary for workforce planning. Time and work study is a means to provide basic data in this regard.Purpose: To determine delivery time for common type of dental care, dentists’ working time in Tehran.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among the general dentists who work in private clinics in Tehran. 100 dentists were chosen randomly. They filled out a self-administered questionnaire. In order todetermine the time spent on each service by the dentists, the median was calculated as the central index.Results: The list of dental treatments was determined by median time to deliver each of them. The useful working time was 90000 minutes for each dentist during a year.Conclusion: The results of this study can be used in estimating dental workforce and reforming dental educational programs.