Unveiling Gender Disparities: A Cross-Sectional Assessment of Patient’s Perception in Dental Care

Abstract

Background: Gender preferences are observed when it comes to strong religious, ethnic, and communal issues. Our community is dominated by men, and gender stereotype has influenced every field, including the medicine and dentistry as well when it comes to choose the health professionals. So, this study was conducted to determine patients' perceptions and preferences for gender stereotypes in local dental services.

Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at Altamash Institute of Dental Medicine, Karachi, with ERB approval from 1st February to 31st March 2022. After informed verbal consent, they were provided with a self-administered, structured, closed-ended questionnaire (Cronbach's α=0.897) containing 21 questions. With Open Epi calculated sample size was 249, a total of 252 completed questionnaires were considered in the study based on the eligibility criteria. The data was tabulated with required descriptive and interferential analysis using SPSS 26, considering 0.05 p-value statistically significant.

Results: The findings revealed that most of the dental practice characteristics are connected with gender, specifically when it comes to the males who still preferred males for dental services with statistically significant differences in most of the attributes (p > 0.05).

Conclusion: Concerning the patient’s gender, the male patients preferred male dentists, whereas female patients had no gender preferences for the dentist.