Background: One of the most important job stressors that dentists could be faced in their career is patient complaint. The aim of this study was to present profile of dental Practitioners’ malpractice in Mashhad, Iran.

Methods: Complaint records about dentists in the Mashhad Medical Council, were evaluated during 2001to 2011.Variables such as location of treatment, gender of patient and dentist, type of dental treatment and causes of complaint. Data analysis was performed by SPSS software15.

Findings: between 250 cases in 62.4%, dentists were not found guilty. Most dentists that they had complained of were male. Frequency of complaints related to general dentists (87.2%), endodontics (4.4%) and periodontics (2.4%), respectively. The most frequent failures were related to private offices (62/8%), private dental clinics (28.4%), charity clinics (3.2%) and finally hospital clinics (2.8%), respectively. The most frequent treatment-related side effects were loss of tooth by dentists (24.4%).

Conclusion: Based on findings of the study, most of the defendants (dentists) were not faulty. Most of patients who complain against dentists were female and most of defendants were general men dentists. Majority of complaints concerned to private sectors, and periodontal surgery procedures.