Review of Medical Complaint Files in the Medical Council of Isfahan, Iran

• Main Authors: Khosro Naghibi, Kamran Montazari, Sayed Salman Khalifeh Soltani
• Format: Article
• Language: fas
• Published: Vesnu Publications 2012-03-01
• Series: مجله دانشکده پزشکی اصفهان
• Subjects: Patient complaint; Medical fault; Medical error; Medical complaint
• Online Access: http://jims.mui.ac.ir/index.php/jims/article/view/1436

Background: Despite recent scientific and technological advances in diagnosis and treatment of diseases, more complaints from the therapeutic team and physicians are issued. Increased number of physicians, population growth, enhanced knowledge of people, and complicated diagnostic and treatment instruments might be responsible for this trend. In addition, fading the traditional physician-patient relationship is magnifying the problem. The present study was hence performed to detect the backgrounds and motives of the complainers as well as demographic features of both plaintiffs and defendants. Methods: This descriptive study used a questionnaire to retrospectively survey all medical complaints issued in Isfahan division of the Iranian medical council during 2007-9. Findings: During 2007-9, 821 complaints from therapeutic teams were issued in the medical council of Isfahan. In 162 cases (19.7%), the therapeutic team was decided to be guilty while in 659 cases, they were exonerated. Among these 821 complaints, 655 (79.8%) were from physicians, 82 (9.9%) from dentists, 9 (1.0%) from pharmacists, 5 (0.6%) from midwives, 3 (0.3%) from nurses, 2 (0.2%) from physiotherapists, and 65 (7.9%) from others. In the survey of the cause of complaint, 288 cases of therapeutic faults, 160 cases of nonchalance, 147 cases of non-adherence to governmental rules, 147 high cost, 85 cases of patient negligence, 47 cases of wrong diagnosis, and 43 cases of inappropriate behavior were found. While some treatment complications such as physical injuries (n = 562; 68.4%), death (n = 162; 19.7%), and mental complications (n = 1; 0.3%) were reported, in 96 cases (11.6%), no complications were recorded. A single lawyer followed 27 cases (3%). Complaints from governmental and private centers constituted 49.1% (n = 403) and 50.9% (n = 418) of all cases, respectively. Conclusion: Considering the abovementioned finding, measures need to be taken to reduce the number of medical complaints. Most importantly however, the motives and causes of complaints should be clearly identified.