Patients are not the only ones harmed by medical errors, said a survey that found many doctors who make mistakes — and even those who come close — suffer stress, sleep problems and loss of confidence.
Job stress related to medical errors potentially could make some doctors prone to depression, quitting or even making additional mistakes, underscoring the need for helping them cope, said Washington University psychologist Amy Waterman, lead author of the study released Wednesday.
The survey involved 3,171 doctors in St. Louis, Seattle and Canada who answered mailed or e-mailed questionnaires. Most —2,909 — said they had been involved with a near-miss, minor medical error or serious error, which includes mistakes causing permanent or potentially life-threatening harm.
Most doctors surveyed said they would have liked counselling or other help after making mistakes, but hospitals and other health-care organizations did not offer much assistance.
The results appear in the August edition of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, published by an affiliate of the Joint Commission, a hospital regulatory group involved in efforts to reduce medical errors in the United States.
Many of those efforts stem from an influential 1999 report that estimated at least 44,000 Americans die each year from medical mistakes.
While the survey's scope was limited, the results echo smaller studies and likely apply to doctors elsewhere, the authors and experts not involved in the research said.
More doctors might be at risk: professor
Dr. Donald Berwick, a Harvard professor who runs the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, said even more doctors might be adversely affected in regions where reforms aimed at reducing medical errors have not taken hold.
"Nobody thinks that this excuses or should minimize" the suffering of patients harmed by errors but it is important to emphasize that doctors suffer, too, Berwick said.
Of surveyed doctors involved in errors 61 per cent said they felt increased anxiety about the potential for future mistakes, 44 per cent said they became less confident in their job abilities, 42 per cent experienced sleep problems and 42 per cent had a loss in job satisfaction.
Only 10 per cent said hospitals offered them adequate resources for dealing with mistake-related stress.
Doctors involved in serious errors were most likely to report increased job-related stress. Still, increased stress also was reported by one-third of those involved in near-misses
While hospitals are increasingly adopting a more open approach to acknowledging errors, many still fear lawsuits and won't let doctors even discuss their mistakes, let alone offer them help, Berwick said.
He said doctors need self-esteem and optimism to effectively treat patients, and more openness and coping resources for doctors could lead to improvements that would reduce errors.
"Who wants a wounded healer?" Berwick said.
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