Direction” in Male and Female Dental Students’ Interaction With Patients: A Confirmation of Similarities

A growing body of literature examining sex-based communication differences of health care providers and/or patients shows mixed results. There appears to be a slight tendency for female patients to perceive and perhaps even receive a higher quality of health communication. We predicted, therefore, that (a) male dental students would demonstrate significantly higher communicative competence with female compared to male patients, and (b) female dental students would demonstrate significantly higher communicative competence with female compared to male patients. Data obtained using a standardized evaluation form from 590 dental appointments over 6 years did not support either prediction. In feet, no significant differences were observed for any combination of dental students’ and patients’ gender. The large sample in this study supports data from other research showing no male-female communication differences when observational and behavioral measures are recorded in applied settings.