Investigating the effective factors on patients' escape from one of the public hospitals in Bushehr city in 2017-2018: A descriptive, cross-sectional study

Absconding from hospitals presents big challenges to the health care systems, with consequences such as delay and incomplete treatment process. Also it may result in increased personal workload and the cost burden of health system. The aim of this study was to determine absconding rate and its driving factors in a public hospital in Bushehr city in 2017-2018.

The present descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in a general hospital in Bushehr. During the study, patients' information was extracted by a checklist from their medical records between 20 March 2017 and 1 March 2018 using census method. Ethical criteria such as confidentiality of patients' names and the hospital under study were observed.

Absconding rate was found to be 0.18 percentage. The highest number of escapes was noticed in emergency wards (137 and 92%), meaning that in average 6 persons have escaped each month. Mean age of the patients was 29.02 and they stayed 2.07 days in the hospital. The highest frequency of escape was observed in male patients and in singles which occurred in night shift. About 72%(117) of patients did not have health insurance, but 88% of unpaid amount was belonged to insured persons. The total amount of damages was estimated to be 1,411,950,080 Rials. The average cost per patient was also appraised to be 9,540,203 Rials.

Despite the low escape rate at the studied hospital, the property damage was significant. Installation of gates and controlling the entry and exit of patients, coupled with increasing the number of physical protection staff and insurance offices, as well as reforming the clearance process and insurance laws are proposed to reduce the occurrence of this problem