ArticleBMJ open quality2024
Adverse events and perceived abandonment: learning from patients' accounts of medical mishaps.
Article in BMJ open quality, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- The power and pain of words: how language matters in responding to patients after harm.Frontiers in health services · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAdverse medical events affect 10% of American households annually, inducing a variety of harms and attitudinal changes. The impact of adverse events on perceived abandonment by patients and their care partners has not been methodically assessed.
objectiveTo identify ways in which providers, patients and families responded to medical mishaps, linking these qualitatively and statistically to reported feelings of abandonment and sequelae induced by perceived abandonment.
methodsMixed-methods analysis of responses to the Massachusetts Medical Errors Recontact survey with participants reporting a medical error within the past 5 years. The survey consisted of forty closed and open-ended questions examining adverse medical events and their consequences. Respondents were asked whether they felt 'that the doctors abandoned or betrayed you or your family'. Open-ended responses were analysed with a coding schema by two clinician coders.
resultsOf the 253 respondents, 34.5% initially and 20% persistently experienced abandonment. Perceived abandonment could be traced to interactions before (18%), during (34%) and after (45%) the medical mishap. Comprehensive post-incident communication reduced abandonment for patients staying with the provider associated with the mishap. However, 68.4% of patients perceiving abandonment left their original provider; for them, post-error communication did not increase the probability of resolution. Abandonment accounted for half the post-event loss of trust in clinicians. LIMITATIONS: Survey-based data may under-report the impact of perceived errors on vulnerable populations. Moreover, patients may not be cognizant of all forms of adverse events or all sequelae to those events. Our data were drawn from a single state and time period.
conclusionAddressing the deleterious impact of persisting abandonment merits attention in programmes responding to patient safety concerns. Enhancing patient engagement in the aftermath of an adverse medical event has the potential to reinforce therapeutic alliances between patients and their subsequent clinicians.
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