- Half of Spaniards have changed their dentist because they were not satisfied with the intervention or did not trust the specialist.
- Up to 3 out of 10 patients have lost a tooth because they did not go to the dentist.
- Half of adults between 25 and 45 years of age would get braces if necessary
Barcelona, July 20, 2017.- Half of Spaniards have changed dentists between 3 and 4 times in their lifetime, according to the latest study conducted by Top Doctors, the leading digital platform for identifying top doctors and medical centers. The data also indicate that they do so out of insecurity, as half of them even state that they were dissatisfied with some of the interventions performed or did not trust the skills of their specialist.
Despite this, Spanish customers still like to have a dentist they can trust. “Despite the current possibilities of access to information, it is difficult to find the best dentist. Sometimes we base our choice on recommendations from family or friends, or on the proximity of the specialist to our place of work or residence. However, this formula is not always the best option. Our data indicate that up to 41% of Spaniards are already searching through different channels for information on the professionalism of the clinic or doctor in order to locate the TOP doctor with total certainty,” says Pablo de Porcioles, CCO for Europe at Top Doctors.
3 out of 10 Spaniards have lost a tooth because they didn’t go to a specialist
It is well known that the dentist is not one of the specialists most desired by Spanish patients. In fact, up to half of those surveyed say that they wait about a week to go to the specialist once the first discomfort or symptoms appear.
Laziness, price and even forgetfulness are the main reasons for not going to the dentist. And, although in general they recognize that they should increase the frequency of their dental visits, 3 out of 10 Spaniards confess to having suffered oral problems as a result of their laziness. Among these people, 41% of them have suffered multiple cavities, tartar accumulation (34%), the need for endodontics (27%) and even the loss of teeth (27%).
For this reason, almost half of those surveyed say they would have more check-ups if they had an alert system or if the clinic directly reminded them of their annual appointments. For 6 out of 10, it would even be optimal to be able to contact them via chat.
The rise of dental esthetics among adults
Although the need to tackle it at an early age means that orthodontics is more frequent in children, the growing importance that aesthetics is acquiring in our lives is leading to an increasing number of adults demanding dental braces. In fact, according to data from this study, 45% of Spaniards between the ages of 26 and 45 say they would have braces if necessary. “Teeth can be moved and corrected at any age, and orthodontics makes it possible to modify their position in the bone. The specialist decides and stipulates the technique used based on the patient’s age and needs,” says Dr. Pimentel Gómez, a specialist in dentistry and stomatology and member of the Spanish Society of Orthodontics and Top Doctors.
According to this study, up to 35% of dental appointments have to do with dental esthetics: teeth cleaning (58%), teeth whitening (39%), orthodontics (41%), or veneers or caps (36%). Up to 4% dare with fashionable treatments such as tattoos or piercings or the so fashionable separation of teeth (diastema).
Finally, in up to 7 out of 10 of these cases the patient is a woman. Braces are the most commonly used dental correction system (73%) followed by night braces (21%) or mobile braces (21%) and finally invisalign (12%).