Patient Complaints: Patients’ and Physicians’ Interaction in Handling Complex Requests of Care

OBJECTIVE: The study report focuses on the interaction of patients’ complaint cases and their related physicians’ responses in handling patients’ complex requests based on the dynamics of power and ideology. METHOD: Data consist of 3 selected patients’ complaints and 7 physicians’ responses in a specialized medical care organization in December 2016. Data of the qualitative case study were used in narrative analysis. RESULTS: The study revealed storylines of narratives ending in physicians’ collective ideology of encounters with dissatisfied patients. CONCLUSION: The interaction between patients’ complaints and physicians’ responses showed emergent patterns of conflicts, which were both constraining and enabling.