title: Doctors' experiences of adverse events in secondary care: the professional and personal impact.
abstract: We carried out a cross-sectional online survey of fellows and members of the Royal College of Physicians to establish physicians' experiences of adverse patient safety events and near misses, and the professional and personal impact of these. 1,755 physicians answered at least one question; 1,334 answered every relevant question. Of 1,463 doctors whose patients had an adverse event or near miss, 1,119 (76%) believed this had affected them personally or professionally. 1,077 (74%) reported stress, 995 (68%) anxiety, 840 (60%) sleep disturbance and 886 (63%) lower professional confidence. 1,192 (81%) became anxious about the potential for future errors. Of 1,141 who had used NHS incident reporting systems, only 315 (28%) were satisfied with this process. 201 (14%) received useful feedback, 201 (19%) saw local improvements and 277 (19%) saw system changes. 364 (25%) did not report an incident that they should have. Adverse safety events affect physicians, but few formal sources of support are available. Most doctors use incident-reporting systems, but many describe a lack of useful feedback, systems change or local improvement.
authors.affiliation: Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia reema.harrison@sydney.edu.au.
authors.forename: Reema
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Harrison
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lawton
authors.affiliation: Royal College of Physicians' Clinical Effectiveness and Evaluation Unit, London, UK.
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Stewart
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001007:Anxiety; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D000067491:Near Miss, Healthcare / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010820:Physicians / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012308:Risk Management / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D063127:Secondary Health Care; D012893:Sleep Wake Disorders; D013312:Stress, Physiological; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult