Practice, Perceived Barriers and Motivating factors to medical-incident reporting: A cross-section survey of health care providers at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital, Southwestern Uganda.

Abstract

Background Medical-incident reporting (MIR) ensures patient safety and delivery of quality of care by minimizing unintentional harm among health care providers. We explored medical-incident reporting practices, perceived barriers and motivating factors among health care providers at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital (MRRH).Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study on 158 health provider at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital (MRRH), Western Uganda, using a structured questionnaire and analyzed the data obtained using SPSS. The chi-square was used to test for association and principle component analysis was used to establish with the highest correlation with MIR at MRRHResults The results showed that there was no formal incident reporting structure. However the medical-incidences identified were: medication errors (89.9%), diagnostic errors (71.5%), surgical errors (52.5%) and preventive error (47.7%). The motivating factors of MIR were: establishment of a good communication system, instituting corrective action on the reported incidents and reinforcing health workers knowledge on MIR (p-value 0.004); presence of effective organizational systems like: written guidelines, practices of open door policy, no blame approach, and team work were significantly associated with MIR (p-value 0.000). On the other hand, perceived barriers to MIR were: lack of knowledge on incidents and their reporting, non-existence of an incident reporting team and fear of being punished (p value 0.669).Conclusion Medical Incident Reporting at MRRH was sub-optimal. Therefore setting up an incident management team and conducting routine training MIR among health care workers will increase patient safety.