Frequency of medical malpractice in deceased patients' records in Tohid Hospital in Sanandaj in 2017

Introduction: The number of lawsuits against doctors and healthcare personnel and medical institutions has steadily increased in recent years worldwide. The evaluation of medical malpractice in hospital’s mortality committees is one of the ways to investigate medical errors, which, despite the lack of complaints against doctors, addresses malpractices in cases of deaths in hospitals. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of medical malpractice in dead patients examined at the Tohid Hospital in Sanandaj, Iran in 2017. Material and Methods: This is a retrospective descriptive cross-sectional study. In this study, after obtaining the Ethics Committee approval of the Kurdistan University of medical sciences, the records of all the patients died at Tohid Hospital in Sanandaj in 2017 evaluated. Out of these cases, referral cases to the Mortality committee and the outcome of the evaluation of the baccalaureate of the committee were evaluated, and eventually information was extracted from cases where the malpractice was recorded by the hospital mortality committee. For data analysis, descriptive statistics, mean, standard deviation, percentage and for analytical purposes, Chi-square test was used. Data analysis was done using SPSS 22 software. Results: Among the total 732 deaths in Tohid Hospital, the highest number of cases was males (52.6%), illiterate (70.2%), urban residents (73.7%) and housewives (32.9%). The mean age of the deceased was 69.8 years. The largest cause of death was cancers (22.7%). Of the total number of deaths, 25 cases (3.5%) were suspected of having errors in the preliminary evaluation, which malpractice confirmed in 2.3% of all deaths and 68% of the cases referred to the mortality committee. The most type of malpractices were due to Indifference in 58%. Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that the most cases of medical failure were due to medical indifference in medical personnel. Considering the improvement of the abilities of physicians and other medical staff in various stages of treatment during their education and in the form of effective workshops after graduation, and paying more attention to religious standards and ethics can reduce the deaths due to medical malpractice have a significant impact on treatment centers.