View of the patient rights committees of the hospitals on applications including communication problems: Sample of Konya hospitals

Abstract

Objective: This survey includes the study of patient rights pertaining to their practices in state hospitals. Investigation of the view of 'patient rights committees' established in the context of 'Patient Rights Practice Instructions' published in 2005 on applications including communication problems was aimed. Material and Methods: A total of 577 applications between 01.05.2008 and 30.04.2009 to the patient rights units of 23 hospitals under governance of Konya Health Management Patient Rights Province Coordinator were evaluated. New categories were developed using content analysis for categorization of the applications besides the data of the system. Applications were analyzed using SPSS 12 program by being quantified in 11 categories. Data were interpreted using descriptive statistics and Chi-square analysis. Results: Complaints were mostly about outpatient clinic services (40%) followed by complaints about emergency and first aid services (17.9%) in Konya during aforementioned period. The most important problem was communication oriented (40.4%) in terms of complaints. Medical problems (17.9%), difficulties in reaching services (14.7%) and management problems (14.2%) followed this. Of the application files evaluated by the committee, 24.6% were decided against the patients. The ratio of the files resulted against the patients were more than half (62.7%). There were significant relationships between application reasons and decisions made by the committees. 74% of the complaints about communication problems resulted against the patients and this is the highest ratio when compared to others. Conclusion: Although applications including communication problems have the highest ratio among total applications, ratio of making a decision in favor of the patients is low. The reasons for this can be stated as following: - It can be based on the structure of the committees, -Communications problems are hard to be proven as they are generally intangible, - Medical aspects of the events can be kept in the forefront. The results have shown that more and more educational programs should be placed in order for the health personnel to be able to communicate properly with a patient and his/her relatives, not just during the school period but after the graduation as well. © 2011 by Türkiye Klinikleri.