Study of Causes of Health Provider's Malpractices in Records Referred to Forensic Medicine Organization in Urmia, during 2009-2013

In spite of scientific and technologic developments in medical diagnosis and treatment, health providers’ malpractices increased that can decrease confidence of the people to them and cause stress and anxiety. The study is carrued out to determine the compliant about health providers’ malpractices in records referred to forensic medicine organization in Urmia, during 2009-2013.
In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 134 malpractices claim records registered in legal medicine organization were assessed. Demographic characteristics of the patients and health providers, the place and the kind of malpractices and the kind of injuries were gathered by a checklist and analyzed by SPSS 18.
Findings: During these 4 years, 134 claimed documents had been studied. 101 (75.4%) of samples were men and the others were women (24.3%). Mean age of them were 35.1±19.2 years. Most of records were related to doctors’ malparctices (37.3%) and other health care providers (62.7%). The most of complaints were related to carelessness (39.5%), lack of skill (28.9%), negligence (26.3%) and non-compliance with government regulations (5.3%). Orthopedic surgeons (16.4%), gynecologists (12.7%) and general surgeons (11.2%) and ear nose and throat specialists (11%) had the highest malpractice cases. As a result of complaints cases referred to in (74.6%) resulted in acquittals and in (25.4%) cases resulted in a conviction.
Although most of the health care providers were acquitted, scientific skills and a good communication with patients about their treatments and reduction of possible side effects and paying attention to medical ethics can prevent many complaints.