Medical Errors Among Postgraduate Medical Students Joining The Iraqi and Arab Councils For Medical Specializations -Medical City Complex

BackgroundAll humans make mistakes. Unintentional medical mistakes affect patients and their families, but they can also have a negative behavioral, psychological and emotional impact on the involved healthcare practitioner or providers. These could include emotional distress, fear, feeling guilt and even depression. AimThis study aims to describe the events contributing to medical errors and the impact of these errors on behavior among postgraduate medical students joining the Iraqi and Arabic councils for medical specialty. Subjects and MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted in Medical city complex, Baghdad, Iraq, by convenient sampling. Data were collected by a self-administered questionnaire form, which was given to all participants and retrieved at the same day. The questionnaire contains three sections (13 items), in the first section it mainly asks about personal information of the participant and their specialty, Second section contains the main question of the study which is whether they have been involved in a medical error or not, and the third section asks about the events and behavior that are related to those errors like the time of the error, the most important contributing factor, the strongest feeling that they felt after this error and the most obvious behavioral response after the error. ResultsThe total number of participants was 200 individuals. 111 of them were juniors and 89 were senior doctors. Gender (p-value< 0.0001) was significantly associated with medical errors, notably males tended to be involved in medical errors more than females with a number of 46 (40.7%) compared to 21 (24.13%) respectively. there is statistically significant association between decreased navigation of social media applications during work hours for non-work and medical error (P value < 0.0001). Furthermore, specialty was significantly associated with medical errors (P value < 0.0001) as surgical specialty tended to be involve in medical errors more than medical specialty with a number of 34 (38.2%) compared to 33(29.7%) respectively. ConclusionDistraction of attention was the most contributing factor behind medical errors. Emotional distress was the most common feeling experienced by participants. Increasing vigilance was the most behavioral response among participants following their involvement in medical errors. Furthermore, male doctors tend to be involved in medical errors more than female doctors. Surgical specialty tends to be involved in medical errors more than medical specialty.