It's not you, it's me: a descriptive study of patient complaints and surgeon understanding

Abstract

Background: Patient complaints are an underutilized and under-addressed issue in general surgery. They represent a unique sphere of interaction for surgeons and patients to understand motivations and failures in the delivery of healthcare. The aims of this study were to identify motivators of patient complaints and understand surgeon's awareness of this issue. Methods: A retrospective review of patient complaint data in a single regional general surgical department was undertaken between the periods October 2017 to June 2020 and June 2018 to October 2020 relating to patient demographics and subject of complaint. Secondly, an anonymous survey was conducted across the same department and results tabulated by seniority. Results: Two hundred and nineteen complaints were received during the study period. One hundred and thirteen were made by patients, while 56 were made by family members. One hundred and fifty-nine complaints were related to an inpatient episode of care, and 152 were made in writing. The majority of complainants were female, with a mean age of 52. The most common reason for complaint was "treatment" (n = 102), followed by communication (n = 48), and humaneness/caring (n = 44). Consultant surgeons and surgical trainees placed communication, humaneness/caring, and professionalism as most likely to incite complaints, while interns were more likely to prioritize other measures such as patient healthcare rights and medications. Conclusion: Patient complaints remain a relatively under-utilized resource in addressing the downfalls of general surgical departments. This study reports patient demographics that are congruent with the literature and highlights that surgeons prioritize many non-technical skills in the maintenance of the doctor-patient relationship, in contrast to preconceptions.

Sağlık Çalışanlarına Yönelik Hasta ve Yakınlarının Şikâyetlerinin Analizi

“…In the literature, it has been observed that patients and/or their relatives mostly complain about communication, long waiting time and behavior (poor attitude). [14,15,19,20,22,23,[25][26][27] Although the results of our study seem to be similar to the literature, it is assumed that the complaints of the patients and/or their relatives will decrease by getting the patient's examination results more quickly, providing communication training to health workers, reducing the problems caused by the hospital system and reducing the problems experienced due to the lack of medical equipment.…”

“…There are differences in the literature in terms of gender, age range, educational status, and occupation of the complainant. [10,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] We attribute this to the type of health institutions, sample size, time zone, data source, and socio-cultural structure of the society. When we examined which unit the patients applied to, it was determined that 58.7% (n=813) had applied to the patient rights unit.…”

Six Years of Complaints Issued by Patients at a Laser Treatment Center in a Plastic Surgery Hospital

“…This could be illuminated if we consider that surgeons largely have poor communication skills and pay less attention to patients' emotions compared with their peers. 8,9 In the study conducted by Wofford et al, 36% of complaints issued were in regard to patients feeling disrespected by their doctors. 10 However, similar complaints were not observed in this study.…”