Comparison of physicians’ and dentists’ incident reports in open data from the Japan Council for Quality Health Care: A retrospective mixed-method study

Abstract

Background Patient safety is associated with patient outcomes. However, there is insufficient evidence of patient safety in the dental field. This study aimed to compare incidents reported by dentists and physicians, compare the type of errors made by them, and identify how dentists prevent dental errors. Methods A retrospective mixed-methods study was conducted using open data from the Japan Council for Quality Health Care database. A total of 6,071 incident reports submitted for the period 2016 to 2020 were analyzed; the number of dentists’ incident reports was 144, and the number of physicians’ incident reports was 5,927. We analyzed the data using descriptive statistics and content analysis. Results The highest percentage of dental incidents reported were treatment errors (n = 104, 72.2%), which was the same as for physicians (n = 3215, 54.2%). The percentage of dental intern reporters was higher than that of medical intern reporters (dentists: n = 12, 8.3%; physicians: n = 180, 3.0%; p = 0.002). The percentage of each type of prevention method utilized was as follows: software 27.8% (n = 292), hardware (e.g., developing a new system) 2.1% (n = 22), environment (e.g., coordinating the activities of staff) 4.2% (n = 44), liveware (e.g., reviewing procedure, double checking, evaluating judgement calls made) 51.6% (n = 542), and liveware-liveware (e.g., developing adequate treatment plans, conducting appropriate postoperative evaluations, selecting appropriate equipment and adequately trained medical staff) 14.3% (n = 150). Conclusions Establishing a comprehensive support system for dental interns is essential. In addition, it is necessary to develop and implement effective preventive methods and policies for patient safety, which not only rely on individual efforts but also engage the medical community as a whole.