Patient views of adverse events: Comparisons of self-reported healthcare staff attitudes with disclosure of accident information

In the present paper, we report results of surveys in 2003 in Japan and Denmark about patients' views about adverse events, focusing on the actions of healthcare staff involved in a medical accident. Results show that patients were more likely to indicate negative expectations to a doctor's reactions after a medical accident when asked in general terms than when asked in relation to concrete case stories.

When asked in general terms, 66% (47%) of Japanese (Danish) respondents expected that doctors sometimes hold back on providing information to patients about a medical accident, while 37% (7%) did so when asked about a concrete, mild-outcome case. We examine some possible reasons for the relatively high level of distrust of Japanese patients, and we discuss whether the seemingly lower level of disclosure in Japan than in Denmark and the negative stories in the Japanese press may have an impact.

We also suggest some implications for introducing a patient-centred or customer-centred approach to risk management in healthcare and other domains.