Study of the Frequency of Medical Complaints against Ophthalmologists and their Associated Factors in Guilan Province from 2011 to 2019

Abstract

Medical negligence means a failure to provide service or committing a mistake in planning and decisionmaking that causes an unwanted result. In fact, this term can be applied to any incorrect choice and failure of a treatment method to achieve a goal for the patient or deviation from medical care standards that causes harm to the patient. All complaint files against ophthalmologists in the forensic medicine commissions of Guilan Province from 2011 to 2019 were reviewed. Information including the gender of the complainant, the patient's gender, the patient's age, the patient's level of education, the patient's occupation, the patient's place of residence, the method of referral, the verdict issued, the percentage of negligence, the cause of negligence, the place of occurrence of the error, the place of filing the complaint, the injury that led to death, the error in the type of health care, the persons involved, and the ratio of the complainant to the patient were collected in a checklist prepared in advance by the researcher. According to the findings, in a total of 723 cases of total complaints registered, 32 members of the medical staff (general practitioners, specialists, and subspecialists) were involved, of which 3 (9.4%) were female and 29 (90.6%) were male. According to the findings, in 13 cases (54.1%) a specialist was involved and in 13 cases (45.9%) a subspecialist was involved. Out of 24 complaint cases, in 20 (83.3%) cases the decision was made that the ophthalmologists were not negligent. In our study, all complaints were due to the treatment method and none were due to the doctor's treatment or financial issues, which is contrary to previous studies. In this study, out of a total of 24 cases, only 2 cases resulted in death. In total, in 2 cases (8.4%) injury resulted in death. It was also observed in this study that in two cases that resulted in death, only ophthalmologists were not involved in these cases, and in one case (3 general practitioners, one cardiologist, one anesthesiologist, and one neurologist) were involved, and in another case (one anesthesiologist) was involved in the case.