engleski

Do Croatian dentists respect patients' confidentiality and privacy

Confidentiality of what the dentists learn about their patients and the patient's right to privacy about their information and personal data is build into respective national laws and the Code of ethics in the Croatian dentistry – as one of the key components of the professional duties. Nevertheless from clinical experience, i.e. daily practice, it appears that dentists are insufficiently informed about obligation of professional confidentiality and privacy of patients and that they consequently do not apply in practice the Croatian legislation regulating this issue. There is no relevant scientific data to what extent health professionals in general and dentists in particular employ their obligation to protect patients' confidentiality in Croatia. The purpose of this study is to explore how dentist understand their professional duty to protect patients' privacy, the level of awareness and the dominant attitudes on the subject. We plan to include 840 dentists in our survey and ask them to fill out a questionnaire. We hope for a response rate of 70% which, according to data from the registry of the Croatian Chamber of Dentists, makes 15% of the total number of dentists. The research will be designed as crosssectional observational study. Statistical analysis of the obtained data will be made using the statistical program SPSS 10.0 - analysis of variance, analysis of Covariance, multiple regression and discriminatory analysis. Canonical discrimination function analysis will be used to assess the attitudes of 3 different strata (dentist in the public health institutions, dentists in private sector without active third party, dentist in private sector with third-party payers). We expect our survey results to demonstrate that in daily dental care practice the right to patients' confidentiality and privacy of data is not fully accepted standard and that Croatian dentist do not completely understand ethical reasons for protection. Besides we hope that research results may indicate the direction of future dental education bearing in mind that good communication between patient and dentist strongly depends on confidentiality. We would like to propose specific training patterns on the matter and to set strict educational commitment to dentists' obligations. Without obligation to respect the patients' confidentiality and privacy of information and personal data, diagnosis and appropriate treatment can not be properly established.

patient-dentist relationship; patient trust; dental ethics; privacy; confidentiality; professionalism; Croatia

nije evidentirano