The Patient Expectations on Teledentistry in the New Normal

Through teledentistry, the dentists and the patient can meet virtually to evaluate their conditions, present treatment plans, offer dental education like maintaining oral health during this time of the pandemic, prescribe medication, meet for pre-operative and post-operative appointments, and maintain electronic health records across long distances. To evaluate the efficiency and viability of the program, this research intends to direct future dental professionals to merge their online services by looking at existing  statistics and data. To guarantee that patients will receive satisfying results from their healthcare consultations, whether in the new normal or for other future conditions, the research is produced to serve as a reference for future procedures that can assist reduce the danger of the pandemic. Understanding the patient’s viewpoint on utilizing teledentistry to observe and determine if it may help access dental care challenges in pandemic situations is important for understanding the study’s value. The study determined the expectations of patients on teledentistry in the new normal, more specifically, it presented the demographic profile of the patients, in terms of their age, sex, college course, number of years being a patient, and their possible reason for consultation. It determined the expectations of patients when demographic variables were grouped. A quantitative research design was used to determine patients’ expectations of teledentistry in the new normal. Findings showed that the patients agree with the expectations of teledentistry in the new normal. When grouped according to profile variable, the differences in the respondents’ expectations were interpreted to be not significant in terms of sex, age, college course, prior experiences with teledentistry, number of years being a patient, and chief complaint. Keywords – patient expectation, teledentistry, new normal