Background: Today, despite the efforts of the medical community and healthcare staff along with the advancements in medical technology, patients' dissatisfaction and complaints have been increased. The present study aimed at making a survey on the patients' complaints in a large training hospital affiliated to Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (MUMS). Methods: This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted on written and verbal complaints of patients and their relatives in a tertiary (specialty and sub-specialty) training hospital. All the recorded patients' complaints, from March to December 2012, were reviewed. Data were categorized and analyzed using descriptive statistics by Microsoft Excel 2007. Results: A total of 233 complaints were reviewed, of which 46.35%, 31.34% and 22.31%, respectively, were verbal, written and made on the phone. The main reasons for complaints were accessibility to medical staff (21.46%), communication failures (20.17%) and dissatisfaction with the provided care (14.59%). Thirty one (13.31%) cases were solved at first place, 194 (83.26%) referred to the complaints from the committee and 3.43% referred to the legal authorities. The average response time was about six to seven days. Conclusion:The findings of the study suggest that sufficient availability of medical staff, improvement in communication skills and paying attention to the patients' needs and expectations may reduce complaints from public health facilities.

BackgroundReducing patients’ pain is one of the main goals of providing clinical services, which requires nursing skill. As a simple technique, increasing the duration of subcutaneous heparin injection may affect the intensity of pain and bruising.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to assess the effect of increasing the heparin injection time on pain intensity and bruising associated with subcutaneous injection.MethodsThe present quasi-experimental study consisted of 86 patients, admitted to our hospital, who were treated with subcutaneous heparin injection. A McGill pain intensity questionnaire was used to measure pain severity in a purposive sampling. All of the subjects received subcutaneous heparin twice for 10 seconds. They also were injected twice with heparin infusion, although it was for 30 seconds this time. The interval between the two injections was 24 h, and the intensity of the pain was measured after each injection. The Pearson correlation coefficient was measured, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the t-test were used to analyze the data.ResultsEighty patients received heparin. The body mass indexes were reported as 52 (60%) and 34 (40%) for subjects within the age range of 18.5–24.9 and 25–29.9, respectively. Regarding the mean of pain intensity, there was a significant difference between the 10 and 30 s injections (p < 0.05). Additionally, there was a significant difference in bruising rates between the two methods 48 and 72 h after injection (p < 0.05). The ANOVA test showed a significant association between gender and bruising (p = 0.001).ConclusionAccording to the results, by elevating the duration of heparin injection, the severity of pain was reduced, and, therefore, the patients felt more comfortable.Trial RegistrationThe trial was registered at the Thai Clinical Trials Registry (TCTR) with the TCTR identification of TCTR20160221001.FundingThis research was supported by the research cluster grant (88186-25/01/89) from Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran. The authors received no financial support for the authorship and/or publication of this article.