Prevalence and characteristics of complaint-prone doctors in private practice in Victoria (4 July 2011)

Summary

The aim of this study from Bismark et al. was to identify characteristics of doctors in Victoria, Australia, who are repeated subjects of complaints by patients.

Content

The study found that among doctors in private practice in Victoria, 20.5% experienced at least one complaint over the decade. Among doctors who were the subject of a complaint, 4.5% had four or more complaints, and this group accounted for 17.6% of all complaints to the Victorian Health Services Commissioner. Multivariate analyses showed that surgeons and psychiatrists 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.

Interventions to improve patient satisfaction and public confidence in health services should target complaint-prone subgroups of practitioners.