Nurses’ perceptions of open disclosure processes in cancer care: a cross-sectional study

A practical example of an open disclosure process for people with intellectual disabilities in the Republic of Ireland

“…Duffy (2012) reported in her quantitative study of healthcare staff in the Republic of Ireland (n ¼ 192), that approximately 50% of respondents indicated barriers to disclosure including fear of blame, litigation and disciplinary concerns. More recently, in their crosssectional study on nurses' perceptions of open disclosure in cancer care, Waller et al (2020) found that nurses' perceptions of the number of patients informed of errors in a timely manner, and receiving an explanation for why they occurred, were much lower than what was reported by patients in previous studies (Bryant et al, 2017;Carey et al, 2019). They state that this is attributed to the professional and organisational barriers that exist due to perceived negative implications on reputation (Waller et al, 2020).…”

“…Critically, Harrison et al (2017) cited as little as 30% of harmful events being disclosed to patients in acute health care settings. Under-reporting of incidents is echoed in other literature, often due to perceived negative repercussions (Ock et al, 2016;Wagner et al, 2012;Waller et al, 2020). Duffy (2012) reported in her quantitative study of healthcare staff in the Republic of Ireland (n ¼ 192), that approximately 50% of respondents indicated barriers to disclosure including fear of blame, litigation and disciplinary concerns.…”