the frequency and reasons of medical errors in cases referred to isfahan legal medicine center

background: the prevalence of new diseases and increased number of patient referring to health care centers cause more medical malpractice. this study aimed to identify the frequency and reasons of medical errors in cases referred to isfahan legal medicine commission during 2005-2009. it also tried to provide ways to reduce such errors. methods: in a descriptive, cross-sectional study, 380 cases of medical errors referred to isfahan legal medicine commission from 2005-2009 were evaluated. due to inaccessibility and incompleteness of information, and also uselessness of some cases, 352 cases were finally investigated. the data was collected by a checklist whose validity was obtained by the opinions of experts in several stages. data collection methods were resource review and observation. data was analyzed by spss 11 . results: the 352 studied records included claims from individuals. among physicians and surgeons, general practitioners were claimed more than others (15.3%). anesthesiologists, obstetrics and gynecologists, general surgeons and orthopedic specialists were claimed in 9.3%, 8.3%, 7.6%, and 7.4% of cases, respectively. among other health care professionals, nurses had the highest frequency of claims (9.8%). they were in the second rank of total sentences. in addition, 36.9% of sentences led to conviction among which general practitioners were in the first place (15.3%). the average age of staff was 43 years. the highest frequency of claims (23.2%) was observed in the age group of 35-40 years. males constituted 68.2% of the medical staff. among the 23 cases of administrative staff errors, 91.3% cases led to conviction. in 35.2% of cases, negligence was the main reason of medical malpractice. in 46.4% of the issued convictions, a blood money of 1-10% was determined. conclusion: our results showed that patients' claims of medical staff were increased during the past 5 years. in fact, while 62 cases belonged to 2006, 108 cases were reported in 2010. although medical errors are inconsiderable when the delivered health care services are concerned, identifying their reasons and a proper health care management would lead to higher quality of provided services. key words: malpractice; forensic medicine; health services.