Understanding Pediatric Dentists’ Dental Caries Management Treatment Decisions: A Conjoint Experiment
Date
2016-02-29
Authors
Kateeb, E.T.
Warren, J.J.
Gaeth, G.J.
Momany, E.T.
Damiano, P.C.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Abstract
When traditional ranking
and rating surveys are used to
assess dentists’ treatment decisions, the
patient’s source of payment appears
to be of little importance. Therefore,
this study used the marketing research
tool conjoint analysis to investigate the
relative impact of source of payment
along with the child’s age and cooperativeness
on pediatric dentists’ willingness
to use Atraumatic Restorative
Treatment (ART) to restore posterior
primary teeth. A conjoint survey was
completed by 707 pediatric dentists.
Three factors (age of the child, cooperativeness,
type of insurance) were varied
across 3 levels to create 9 patient
scenarios. The relative weights that
dentists placed on these factors in the
restorative treatment decision process
were determined by conjoint analysis.
“Cooperativeness” (52%) was the most
important factor, “age of the child”
(26%) the second-most important factor,
followed by “insurance status of
the child” (22%). For the third factor,
insurance, pediatric dentists were
least willing to use ART with publicly
insured children (–0.082), and this
was significantly different from their
willingness to use ART with uninsured children (0.010) but not significantly
different than their willingness to use
ART for children with private insurance
(0.073). Unlike traditional ranking
and rating tools, conjoint analysis
found that the insurance status of
the patient appeared to be an important
factor in dentists’ decisions about
different restorative treatment options.
When pediatric dentists were forced
to make tradeoffs among different
patients’ factors, they were most willing
to use ART technique with young,
uncooperative patients when they had
no insurance.
Description
Keywords
dental atraumatic restorative treatment , decision making , conjoint analysis , pediatric dentistry , access to health care , therapy