| Summary: | The objective of this study was to evaluate compliance to the clients' charter in a dental clinic and factors that may affect the
updating of the charter. Our clients' charter states that registration time is within 10 minutes and waiting~room time before being
seen by the dentist is within 30 minutes. Convenience sampling was carried out over two weeks. Only j)atients above 12 years .
treated by dental officers were included. Data recorded included registration and waiting~room time, treatment time, punctuality
of patients and workload of officers. There were a total of 532 patients (407 wa!i,-in/outpatients, 125 appointments). Results
show that the mean waiting~room time for all patients was not compliant to the clients' charter (42.7 ± 23.8 min for wal1<.~in;
44.9 ± 32.7 min for appointments). Only 33% were seen within 30 min whilst about 23% waited for more than 60 minutes.
The mean registration time (17.9 ± 12.8 min) was non-compliant everyday except on Thursdays where there were very few
patients. Waiting time for elderly patients was not statistically significant from the younger patients. About 36% of appointment
patients were seen within 30 minutes; although half of them were late. Extractions, dentures and examination and diagnosis
(£&0) took the shortest time with about 88%,91% and 98% completed within 30 minutes respectively. There was variable
individual speed and number of patients managed by different operators, although the majority was first-year dental officers.
Factors that may contribute to waiting time included number of patients per day, operator and punctuality of patients.
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