A patient-initiated voluntary online survey of adverse medical events: the perspective of 696 injured patients/families

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Adverse event categories and relative frequency

As shown in table 1, the leading category of error reported by patients was failure in diagnosis and treatment. Further breakdown of this category revealed the leading event (subcategory) was a delay in diagnosis and treatment. Misdiagnosis was another frequent event, as was failure to rescue a patient whose clinical condition was worsening. The second most common category was surgical or procedural complications. Wrong site surgery was surprisingly common in our survey (4.3%), as were foreign objects left in the patient (3.6%). Hospital-associated infections were the third most common category, sepsis being the most frequently reported complication, followed by postoperative infections, Clostridium difficile intestinal infection and urinary tract infections. Medication errors were the fourth major category in our survey. It is of interest that a significant percentage (12.8%) reported receiving medications that they were known to have had an allergic reaction to in the past.