The behavioural influence on a patient of a clinician's choice of topic-specific words
09 Oct 2026
Clinical Excellence Theatre
Learning Content
This is the presentation of an innovative pilot study conducted in 2023 in a private specialist periodontal referral practice. The study reports on the motivational power of topic-specific words and shows that patients prefer words which are perceived to be more severe. Although, due to the patient sample, the outcome may be biased and a virtue of regret.
Aims
To impart the knowledge to allow participants to conduct their own pilot study and/or audit.
To demonstrate the steps required to conduct this kind of pilot study in dental practice.
To describe the method, materials, results and conclusions of the pilot study.
To show how the use of standardised topic-specific soundbites across the dental team reduces misunderstanding and increases satisfaction.
.jpg)
