Poor Communication Major Contributor to Patient Safety Incidents
THURSDAY, April 17, 2025 -- Poor communication is a major contributor to patient safety incidents, according to a review published online April 15 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Leila Keshtkar, Ph.D., from the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, and colleagues examined how poor communication between health care practitioners and patients affects patient safety. Forty-six eligible studies were included, with 67,826 patients; the risk for bias was low, moderate, and high for 20, 16, and 10 studies, respectively.
The researchers found that in four studies that examined whether poor communication was the only identified cause of a patient safety incident, 13.2 percent of safety incidents were caused by poor communication. In 42 studies that examined whether poor communication contributed to patient safety incidents along with other causes, poor communication was found to contribute to 24.0 percent of safety incidents. High study heterogeneity was seen in terms of setting, continent, health care staff, and safety incident types. The evidence was low or very low strength.
"Our findings emphasize the urgent need for interventions aimed at improving patient safety through improved communication," the authors write. "Such interventions should be embedded from the beginning of undergraduate health professions education to better prepare health care professionals to communicate effectively with both patients and colleagues."
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