Document Detail


Prevalence and characteristics of complaint-prone doctors in private practice in Victoria.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  21728937     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
OBJECTIVE: To identify characteristics of doctors who are repeated subjects of complaints by patients.
DESIGN AND SETTING: Case-control study of doctors about whom patients had complained to the Victorian Health Services Commissioner between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2009.
PARTICIPANTS: 384 doctors in private practice; cases comprised 96 doctors who were the subject of four or more separate complaints; and the control group comprised 288 doctors who were the subject of a single complaint over the study period.
RESULTS: Among doctors in private practice in Victoria, 20.5% (95% CI, 19.7%-21.3%) experienced at least one complaint over the decade. Among doctors who were the subject of a complaint, 4.5% (95% CI, 3.6%-5.4%) had four or more complaints, and this group accounted for 17.6% (95% CI, 16.3%-19.0%) of all complaints to the Victorian Health Services Commissioner. Multivariate analyses showed that surgeons (odds ratio [OR], 8.90; 95% CI, 3.69-21.50) and psychiatrists (OR, 4.59; 95% CI, 1.46-14.43) had higher odds of being in the complaint-prone group than general practitioners. Doctors trained overseas had lower odds of being complaint-prone than those trained in Australia (OR, 0.31; 95% CI, 0.13-0.72).
CONCLUSIONS: A small group of doctors in private practice in Victoria account for nearly 18% of complaints. Interventions to improve patient satisfaction and public confidence in health services should target complaint-prone subgroups of practitioners.
Authors:
Marie M Bismark; Matthew J Spittal; David M Studdert
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't    
Journal Detail:
Title:  The Medical journal of Australia     Volume:  195     ISSN:  1326-5377     ISO Abbreviation:  Med. J. Aust.     Publication Date:  2011 Jul 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2011-07-06     Completed Date:  2011-09-19     Revised Date:  2012-02-23    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  0400714     Medline TA:  Med J Aust     Country:  Australia    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  25-8     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
School of Population Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC. mariebismark@gmail.com
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Advisory Committees
Case-Control Studies
Health Care Surveys
Humans
Patient Satisfaction / statistics & numerical data*
Physicians / statistics & numerical data*
Prevalence
Private Practice / statistics & numerical data*
Quality Assurance, Health Care / standards*
Statistics, Nonparametric
Victoria / epidemiology
Comments/Corrections
Comment In:
Med J Aust. 2011 Sep 19;195(6):325   [PMID:  21929492 ]
Med J Aust. 2012 Jan 16;196(1):38   [PMID:  22256931 ]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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