Attitudes and perceived barriers of tertiary level health professionals towards incident reporting in Pakistan

BACKGROUND: A limited framework of incident reporting exists in most of the health care system in Pakistan. This poses a risk to the patient population and therefore there is a need to find the causes behind the lack of such a system in healthcare settings in Pakistan. AIMS: To determine the attitudes and perceived barriers towards incident reporting among tertiary care health professionals in Pakistan MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was done in Shifa International Hospitals and consisted of a questionnaire given to 217 randomly selected doctors and nurses. Mean ± SD of continuous variables and frequency (percentage %) of categorical variables are presented. Chi square statistical analysis was used to test the significance of association among doctors and nurses with various outcome variables (motivators to report, perceived barriers, preferred person to report and patient's outcome that influence reporting behaviors). P value of <0.05 was considered significant. Student doctors and student nurses were not included in the study. RESULTS: Unlike consultant, registrars, medical officers and nurses (more than 95% are willing to report), only 20% of house officers will report the incident happened through them. Sixty nine percent of doctors and 67% of nurses perceive ‘administration sanction’ as a common barrier to incident reporting. Sixty percent of doctors and 80% of nurses would prefer reporting to the head of the department. CONCLUSIONS: By giving immunity from administrative sanction, providing prompt feedback and assurance that the incident reporting will be used to make changes in the system, there is considerable willingness of doctors and nurses to take time out of their busy schedules to submit reports.