Table 1.
Cases of healthcare complaints related to intensive care units and the general wards
| Variable | Complaints to the ICUs (n = 343) |
Complaints to the general wards (n = 686) |
p value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Source of the complaints | |||
| Family member | 326 (95.0%) | 303 (44.2%) | < 0.001 |
| Patient | 11 (3.2%) | 337 (49.1%) | |
| Other surrogate | 1 (0.3%) | 1 (0.1%) | |
| Hospital employee | 1 (0.3%) | 0 (0%) | |
| Visitor | 0 (0%) | 6 (0.9%) | |
| Unknown | 4 (1.2%) | 39 (5.7%) | |
| Gender of the complainer | |||
| Male | 91 (26.5%) | 235 (34.3%) | < 0.001 |
| Female | 118 (34.4%) | 317 (46.2%) | |
| N/A | 134 (39.1%) | 134 (19.5%) | |
| Complaint channel | |||
| Opinion feedback sheet | 205 (59.8%) | 403 (58.7%) | 0.055 |
| Phone call | 68 (19.8%) | 148 (21.6%) | |
| In person | 32 (9.3%) | 55 (8.0%) | |
| 30 (8.7%) | 42 (6.1%) | ||
| Letter | 5 (1.5%) | 9 (1.3%) | |
| Fax | 2 (0.6%) | 7 (1.0%) | |
| Other | 1 (0.3%) | 22 (3.2%) | |
| Complained about ongoing problem | |||
| Yes | 291 (84.8%) | 419 (61.1%) | < 0.001 |
| No | 52 (15.2%) | 267 (38.9%) | |
N/A: Not available from the complaint database