Seen through the patients' eyes: Safety of chronic illness care

Due to the increasing burden of chronic diseases, a considerable part of care delivery will continue to shift from secondary to primary care, and home care settings. Despite the growing importance of primary care, concerns about the safety of patients in hospitals have thus far driven most research in the field. Therefore, the present study sought to explore patients' perceptions and experiences of the safety of primary chronic care.

An observational, cross-sectional study design was applied.

Participants were recruited from the Flemish Patients' Platform, an independent organization that defends patients' rights and strives for more care quality.

An online questionnaire was designed to assess: socio-demographic characteristics, medical consumption and patients' perspectives of the quality and safety of chronic care.

Respondents (n = 339) had positive perceptions of the safety of primary chronic care as they indicated to receive safe care at home (68.1%), receive enough care support at home (70.8%) and experience good communication between their healthcare professionals (51.6%). Almost one quarter of respondents experienced an incident, mainly related to self-reported fall incidents (50.4%), wrong diagnoses or treatments (37.8%) and adverse drug events (11.8%). Also, more than half of respondents who experienced an incident (64.9%) indicated that poor communication between their healthcare professionals was the main cause.

Information on patients' experiences is critical to identify patient safety incidents and to ultimately reduce patient harm. More research is needed to fully understand patient safety in primary chronic care to further improve patient safety.