Medical Interns’ Perceptions about Disclosing Medical Errors

Abstract

Background. Honest and timely reporting of medical errors is the professional and ethical duty of any physician as it can help the patients and their families to understand the condition and enable the practitioners to prevent the consequences of the error. This study aims to investigate the viewpoints of medical interns regarding medical error disclosure in educational hospitals in Shiraz, Iran. Methods. A researcher-made questionnaire was used for data collection. The survey consisted of questions about the medical error disclosure, the willingness to disclose an error, the interns’ experiences and intentions of reporting the medical error, and two scenarios to assess the students’ response to a medical error. Results. Medical interns believed that a medical error must be reported for the sake of conscience and commitment and prevention of further consequences. The most important cause of not reporting an error was found to be inappropriate communication skills among the students. The results indicated that the willingness to disclose the hypothetical error among females was more than males (R < 0.005), but in practice, there was no difference between males and females (R > 0.005). The willingness to disclose minor and major hypothetical errors had a positive correlation ( $P<0.001$ , R = 0.848). Conclusion. More ethical training and education of communication skills would be helpful to persuade physicians to disclose medical errors.