Which medical error to disclose to patients and by whom? Public preference and perceptions of norm and current practice

Table 3 Which Medical Error to be Disclosed to Patients According to Personal Preference and Perceptions of Norm and Current Practice

		Disclose medical error if there is
	Don't disclose	Major harm	Moderate harm	Minor harm	Near miss
Preference [902]	41 (4.5)	193 (21.4)	143 (15.9)	205 (22.7)	320 (35.5)
Perception of Norm [902]	26 (2.9)	189 (21.0)	193 (21.4)	220 (24.4)	274 (30.4)
Perception of Practice [846]	124 (14.7)	250 (29.6)	185 (21.9)	141 (16.7)	146 (17.3)

"Don't disclose", and disclose when there is a "major harm", "moderate harm", "minor harm", or "near miss" correspond, respectively, to statements 1 to 5 in Table 1(a). Numbers between [·] represent the number of responses. Data indicate the number (%) of respondents who chose the corresponding statement. Chi square test for the null hypothesis of random distribution was significant (P < 0.001) for each of the three questionnaires. Kendall's W coefficient of concordance (comparing the choices in the 3 questionnaires) was 0.089 (P < 0.001). Wilcoxon signed ranks test: preference vs. perception of norm, P = 0.15; preference vs. perception of current practice, p < 0.001; perception of norm vs. perception of current practice, P < 0.001.

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