[How dentists experience legal disputes with their patients - a qualitative approach]

A well-established doctor-patient relationship is essential for dental care. Once ­there is a legal dispute between the dentist and the patient this doctor-patient relationship has failed. Here we show for the first time how dentists experience these lawsuits. We characterise the dentist's perspectives and investigate their influence on the doctor-patient relationship.

The experience of dentists who were involved in a legal dispute due to a failed dental treatment is pictured in a pilot study on the basis of narrative and problem-oriented interviews. The narrative part of the interview was analysed with the technique of narration analysis. The problem-oriented part of the interview was evaluated content-analytically. From these data a model describing the failure of a doctor-patient relationship was developed.

Communicated burdens and stress were: expenditure of time, duration of the proceedings, financial burdens, limited support and the feeling of being treated unfairly. Consequences taken from the legal dispute were a more detailed documentation and an improvement in patient information. The conflict in the doctor-patient relationship is transformed to a different platform when the legal profession is involved. This contradictory constellation leads to a break in the doctor-patient relationship. Advice for other affected colleagues is: remain calm, aim at an out of court settlement, seek advice from other colleagues and request legal advice, be proactive, avoid court litigation and in the end draw conclusions from the dispute. There is a need for a higher quality of legal dental experts. A contact platform provided by the dental profession is required for interactive collegial communication.

Lawsuits in cases of a conflict between the doctor and the patient are very stressful and need an active coping management but also are a chance for the development of the individual dentist and the profession.