Patients' Identification and Reporting of Unsafe Events at Six Hospitals in Japan

Only 17.1% of unsafe events reported by inpatients were identified by the in-house reporting systems of adverse events and near misses. For the uneasy-dissatisfying or unsafe events that patients did not think necessary to report, the patients often felt they were self-evident or easily identifiable by health care staff, had difficulty evaluating the event, did not expect their report to bring any improvement, or even felt that reporting it would create some disadvantage in their medical treatment. Patient reporting programs and in-house reporting systems, among other detection methods, should be regarded as complementary sources of information.