Patients' complaints regarding healthcare encounters and communication

AIM: To explore patient-reported complaints regarding communication and healthcare encounters and how these were responded to by healthcare professionals.

DESIGN: A retrospective and descriptive design was used in a County Council in northern part of Sweden. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used.

METHODS: The content of 587 patient-reported complaints was included in the study. Descriptive statistical analysis and a deductive content analysis were used to investigate the content in the patient-reported complaints.

RESULTS: The results show that patients' dissatisfaction with encounters and communication concerned all departments in the healthcare organization. Patients were most dissatisfied when they were not met in a professional manner. There were differences between genders, where women reported more complaints regarding their dissatisfaction with encounters and communication compared with men. Many of the answers on the patient-reported complaints lack a personal apology and some of the patients failed to receive an answer to their complaints.