RESUMO
Aims To gather the views of North Wales dentists on the current communication methods of the North Wales Local Dental Committee (LDC) (NWLDC) and how this could be optimised to improve engagement from members.Design Descriptive cross-sectional survey.Setting Online electronic questionnaire.Materials and methods Survey circulated via the NWLDC's current communication channels, local professional groups, the local health board and Health Education and Improvement Wales' Maxcourse distribution list.Results A total of 167 unique responses were received from across North Wales. In total, 79.1% were from dentists, of which most were working in the general dental services (63.6%) on a mixed practice basis (61.9%). Furthermore, 69.5% of respondents felt they received too little information from the LDC, 71.3% never attended LDC meetings and only 15.6% attended more than one meeting a year. The pandemic has had no impact for 82.6% in increasing their engagement with the LDC.Conclusions Communication between the LDC and the dental community within an area is crucial. This survey has shown that, despite the best of intentions, the current communication methods utilised by the NWLDC are not effective at maximising the inclusiveness and participation with the LDC. The survey revealed that there is a lack of clarity over the LDC's role and who is 'allowed' to attend LDC meetings. It showed that although the dental practitioners practising within North Wales want to receive information and updates from the NWLDC, the communication methods which are currently being used are not reaching the majority of them.
RESUMO
Aims To gather the views of dentists practising within North Wales on their preferences as to how they would prefer to interact with the North Wales Local Dental Committee (LDC) (NWLDC).Design Descriptive cross-sectional survey.Setting Online electronic questionnaire.Materials and methods Survey circulated via the NWLDC's current communication channels, local professional groups, the local health board and Health Education and Improvement Wales' MaxCourse email distribution.Results A total of 167 unique responses were received from across North Wales, which included 132 responses from primary care dentists, yielding a response rate of 40.6%. Respondents would prefer to interact with the NWLDC via email notifications (88%), virtual meetings (52.1%) and via the LDC website (41.9%). Furthermore, 31.1% wanted a combination of both physical and virtual attendance at an LDC meeting to be an option and 43.7% of respondents did not want to attend LDC meetings as a preferred method of engaging with the LDC. The survey indicated that holding an educational event just before the LDC meeting will not have a positive impact on subsequent participation in the LDC meeting for 91.6% of respondents. The survey revealed that 70% had never visited the NWLDC's website, with only 20.4% of people visiting it more than once a year. Also, 83.8% stated that the pandemic had made no difference on them accessing the NWLDC website. The results allowed the identification of the top five 'core elements' for an ideal LDC website and which elements should have their access restricted only to LDC members.Conclusions The survey revealed that the respondents want greater communication from the NWLDC and that this is best achieved over a variety of different communication platforms, using the NWLDC website as a primary information resource to which the other communication methods are tethered. It is recognised that only a minority will want to, or be able to, attend the quarterly LDC meetings and so it is imperative that the NWLDC's communication strategy accommodates these individuals, both proactively and passively, by effective use of digital media and to continuously monitor its effectiveness so that it can adapt its strategy to maximise engagement and information delivery. There is a need to expand the representation of the LDC committee to encompass those who have newly entered the profession or are new to the area. The NWLDC recognises the need to reach out to dentists across North Wales who many feel isolated and disenfranchised to establish a constructive, mutually beneficial relationship.