Patient Healthcare Complaints Much Higher Than Official Health Care Reports

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Academic Journal
Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 30 Jan 2012 - 9:00 PST


According to research published in BMJ Open, official complaints regarding healthcare are potentially only the "tip of an iceberg". Many more people, especially those with bad experiences of services, feel they have a legitimate cause for complaint, but have not done so because of 'not having the energy', 'thinking it will make no difference', and 'not knowing where to turn to' as some of the main reasons given for not filing a complaint.

The findings are based on a random sample of 1,500 Swedish adults from Stockholm, Sweden in 2008, who were surveyed with regard to their positive or negative healthcare experiences. One of the questions asked was whether they had ever filed an official complaint about a staff encounter as a patient or relative, and if they never had ever even thought they had a legitimate cause.

The overall response was 62% or 992 people. According to the findings, the good experiences (60%) were almost double as high as the bad ones (34%), with 5.5% of respondents reporting that they had no experience of healthcare. From 867 participants with complete and relevant data, those who had good experiences complained less, whilst only 1.5% had filed a formal complaint, compared with just less than one in twenty (4.8%) who reported to have had poor experiences.

However, regardless of nearly 8% of those with a good experience saying they had reason to complain, they omitted doing so. The proportion increased to nearly four out of ten (37%) amongst those with poor experiences.

Overall, this translates to an official complaint rate of just less than 3% or 23 people, with almost one in five people, i.e. 18.5% or 159 people feeling they had reasons for a complaint, but did not act on them.

The researchers discovered a strong connection between the type of experience and trust in healthcare. Whilst those who made poor experiences expressed little trust in healthcare, those with good experiences said they trusted a great deal in healthcare.

The results showed that one in three of the people who reported to have had grounds for a complaint, but failed to do so, said they had little trust in healthcare, whilst 9 out of 10 of those with no reason to complain reported to have a high level of trust in healthcare.

According to the researchers, trust in healthcare is of major importance for prompting patients to comply with treatment and basically results in maintaining patient safety.

The most typical responses for not filing a complaint, even though people felt they had sufficient reasons for doing so, were reasons such as: "I did not have the strength," or "I did not know where to turn;" and "it makes no difference anyway." The researchers were "alarmed" to learn that some individuals felt that the complaint procedure was too complicated and they feared reprisal.

They highlight the fact that numbers of complaints are gradually rising, despite the fact that only a small proportion of complaints are lodged in relation to the large number of annual healthcare visits in Stockholm.

The researchers conclude:

"[Our] study indicates that healthcare complaints filed...reveal only the tip of an iceberg. Complaints seem to be considerably under reported, especially among those with a negative general experience of healthcare."

The researchers indicate that the finding implicates the development of adequate services, as well as the future prevention of mistakes.

Written by Petra Rattue
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

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