The misdiagnosis severity score and doctors' perception of the severity of diagnostic errors.
OBJECTIVE
To test the previously described misdiagnosis severity score (MSS) by comparing it with doctors' perceptions of the severity of diagnostic errors.


METHODS
14 scenarios of diagnostic errors were described on a questionnaire. These were given to 12 accident and emergency (A&E) consultants who were asked to indicate their assessment of the severity of the errors on a scale of 1 to 10.


RESULTS
There was a highly significant concordance between doctors' rankings of the diagnostic errors, and between the MSS and the mean severity as assessed by the A&E consultants.


CONCLUSIONS
It is reasonable to use the MSS as a measure of the severity of diagnostic errors.
Guly
H R
HR
Accident and Emergency Department, Derriford Hospital, Plymouth.
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003253:Consultants / Q000523:psychology; D003951:Diagnostic Errors / Q000145:classification*; D004636:Emergency Service, Hospital / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D008505:Medical Staff, Hospital / Q000523:psychology*; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D006113:United Kingdom