Frequency of medical malpractice in deceased patients' records in tohid hospital in Sanandaj in 2017

Abstract

Background and Aim: The number of lawsuits against physicians, healthcare personnel and medical institutions has steadily increased in the world in recent years. Evaluation of medical malpractice in the hospital mortality committees is one of the ways to investigate medical errors, which, despite lack of complaints against physicians, can lead to detection of malpractices in death cases in the hospitals. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of medical malpractice cases in the records of dead patients in Tohid Hospital in Sanandaj, Iran in 2017. Material and Methods: This is a retrospective descriptive cross-sectional study. In this study, after obtaining the Ethics Committee approval of the Kurdistan University of medical sciences, we reviewed the records of all of the patients died at Tohid Hospital in Sanandaj in 2017. Among these cases, referral cases to the Mortality Committee and the outcome of the evaluation of the experts of the committee was evaluated, and eventually, we extracted the necessary information from cases confirmed by the hospital mortality committee, as medical malpractice cases. Data were introduced into SPSS 22 software. We used descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation, percentage) and chi-square test for data analysis. Results: Among 732 deaths in Tohid Hospital, 52.6% were male 70.2%, illiterate, 73.7% urban residents and 32.9% housewives. The mean age of the deceased patients was 69.8 years. The most common cause of death was related to cancers (22.7%). 25 cases (3.5%) were suspected of medical errors in the preliminary evaluation and malpractice was confirmed in 2.3% of all deaths. 68% of the cases were referred to the mortality committee. The most frequent cause of malpractice was related to indifference (58%). Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that the most cases of medical failure were due to medical indifference manifested by medical personnel. Improvement of the abilities of physicians and medical staff in various stages of treatment during their education and by planning effective workshops after graduation, and also paying more attention to religious standards and ethics can lead to a significant reduction in the frequency of deaths due to medical malpractice in medical centers.