Customer Healthcare Complaints in Brazil Are Seldom about Medical Errors

Abstract

This study reviewed different country studies and noted that complaints in Brazil are more concentrated in complaints about being attended to and receiving access to services, rather than about clinical quality and safety issues. This paper explores the possible explanations for these differences based on the institutional logics theory and which logics actors privilege, and how they may play out in the healthcare field. To accomplish this undertaking, this study makes use of the healthcare complaint categorization developed by Reader and colleagues, which has been used by various studies. Next, a set of studies about healthcare complaints in different countries was examined to analyze the issues most common in the complaints and compare this information with the Brazilian data. This study identified three explanations why complaints about medical errors seldom occur. One group of studies highlights the hardships of local health systems. Another focuses on patient behavior. Finally, the third kind focuses on the issue of power to determine health orientation. The studies about a lack of resources do not directly explain why fewer complaints about clinical quality occur, thus helping to stress the management issues. Patient behavior studies indicate that patients may be afraid to point out medical errors or may be unaware of the procedures of how to do so, suggesting that family logic is left out of the decisions in the field. The third group of work highlights the prominence of the medical professional logic, both in terms of regulation and medical exercise.

Keywords: complaints; comprehensive healthcare; consumer satisfaction; institutional logics.