The missing evidence: a systematic review of patients' experiences of adverse events in health care.

Harrison R, Walton M, Manias E, et al. Int J Qual Health Care. 2015 Sep 29; [Epub ahead of print].

Patient perspectives are critical to inform patient safety efforts. This systematic review identified studies of patient experiences with adverse events. Included studies demonstrate that the types of adverse events patients most often identify are medication errors and suboptimal communication, and that patient demographic characteristics influence the likelihood of reporting these events. Calling for increased use of patient experiences in future studies, the authors suggest that investigations into adverse events are incomplete if patient perspectives are not included. These results demonstrate the ongoing need to enhance patient engagement in safety research. A previous AHRQ WebM&M perspective delves further into engaging patients in safety improvement.