Dentist-Patient Interactions in Treatment Decision-Making: A Qualitative Study.

A University of North Carolina study using focus groups of dentists and patients found dentist-patient interactions play an important role in treatment decision-making, and are predicated on non-clinical factors, including dentists' intuition and judgment and patient impressions of dentists' examination styles, personalities, and interpersonal ability. Implications for dental education focus on interplay of clinical and psychosocial factors. (MSE)