The mediating role of power distance and fear of negative evaluation in medical error under-reporting across surgical and internal divisions: a multicenter cross-sectional survey in Turkey
Multicenter cross-sectional survey examines medical error reporting in healthcare professionals, indicating barriers to transparency.
Key Points
This study investigates how fear of negative evaluation impacts the relationship between power distance and medical error reporting attitudes among healthcare professionals.
Conducted a multicenter cross-sectional survey across five tertiary hospitals in Istanbul, Turkey.
Collected data from 705 healthcare professionals using anonymous, paper-based questionnaires and validated scales.
Analyzed data using mediation analysis with regression-based models and bootstrap methods.
51.9% of participants witnessed a medical error in the past year, but only 4.5% had positive attitudes toward reporting.
Internal medicine staff showed higher fear of negative evaluation than surgical staff (p < 0.01).
Mediation analysis revealed that fear of negative evaluation mediates the relationship between power use and attitudes toward error reporting (standardized β = 0.020, p = 0.013).