Liu, BRoessler, DMorse, Z2024-09-032024-09-032024-01-13BMC Oral Health, ISSN: 1472-6831 (Print); 1472-6831 (Online), Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 24(1), 74-. doi: 10.1186/s12903-024-03860-31472-68311472-6831http://hdl.handle.net/10292/17970Objectives: To investigate and compare estimates of the longevity of dental treatment, expectations for free remedial treatment, and attitudes about formal dental warranties among dentists, students, and patients. Materials and methods: This is a mixed-method cross-sectional questionnaire survey with convenience sampling from dentists, dental students, and patients in New Zealand. A questionnaire was distributed to New Zealand dentists (n = 28) and final-year dental students (n = 27). A separate questionnaire was provided to patients in a university dental clinic (n = 43). Mann-Whitney U, Chi-square and Pearson Correlation, and Binary logistic regression tests were used to test for differences between groups and correlations amongst variables. Qualitative data were analysed thematically. Results: Dentists believed that their posterior composite resin restorations would last longer (p = 0.014), would remediate failed crowns for longer (p = 0.002) and would provide longer crown warranties (p = 0.003) compared to students. Patients had higher expectations for restoration longevity and free remediation for failed treatment. Students were generally more willing to provide warranties. Crowns were perceived to be the most warrantable, while endodontic treatment was the least warrantable. Recall attendance, mechanical failure, and adequate oral hygiene were commonly proposed as warranty conditions for restorations and crowns. There was little consensus about complete dentures and endodontic treatment. Conclusions: There are significant disparities between the expectations of patients and clinicians regarding treatment longevity and free remediation times. Clinicians, in general, are willing to provide free remediation within a specified time frame, except for endodontic treatment, but are hesitant to provide formal dental warranties.This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Dental guaranteeDental warrantyFailed treatmentLongevity estimatesPatient expectationRemediation32 Biomedical and Clinical Sciences3203 DentistryDental/Oral and Craniofacial Disease1105 DentistryDentistry3203 DentistryHumansDental Restoration, PermanentStudents, DentalCross-Sectional StudiesNew ZealandComposite ResinsSurveys and QuestionnairesDentistsDental CareDental Restoration FailureHumansComposite ResinsCross-Sectional StudiesDental CareDental Restoration FailureDental Restoration, PermanentStudents, DentalDentistsNew ZealandSurveys and QuestionnairesHumansDental Restoration, PermanentStudents, DentalCross-Sectional StudiesNew ZealandComposite ResinsSurveys and QuestionnairesDentistsDental CareDental Restoration FailureJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1186/s12903-024-03860-3