Patients’ complaints regarding healthcare encounters and communication

AIM: To explore patient‐reported complaints regarding communication and healthcare encounters and how these were responded to by healthcare professionals. DESIGN: A retrospective and descriptive design was used in a County Council in northern part of Sweden. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. METHODS: The content of 587 patient‐reported complaints was included in the study. Descriptive statistical analysis and a deductive content analysis were used to investigate the content in the patient‐reported complaints. RESULTS: The results show that patients’ dissatisfaction with encounters and communication concerned all departments in the healthcare organization. Patients were most dissatisfied when they were not met in a professional manner. There were differences between genders, where women reported more complaints regarding their dissatisfaction with encounters and communication compared with men. Many of the answers on the patient‐reported complaints lack a personal apology and some of the patients failed to receive an answer to their complaints.