[The "tendency to excuse" of inpatients. The relevance of the "tendency to excuse" in the interpretation of patient surveys].

OBJECTIVES: The primary purpose of this study was to analyse the extent to which inpatients excuse the errors and inconveniences that take place during their hospital stay and how this "tendency to excuse" affects their assessment of the hospital services.
METHODS: The data, which provided the basis for this study, were obtained from a postal survey that was sent to 1 548 patients who had been treated in one of three hospitals in Germany. The survey itself was conducted within the scope of the research project entitled "Organizational Governance Using Biopsychosocial Indicators" (U-BIKE-Study) and contained various modules of the Cologne Patient Questionnaire (CPQ). For the purpose of the analyses, the "tendency to excuse" was subdivided into "excuser,""medium excuser" and "non-excuser".
RESULTS: A total of 855 patients completed and returned the questionnaire (55.2% response rate). Descriptive analyses showed that nearly half of the patients surveyed were willing to excuse many of the hospital's errors and inconveniences. Each of the "tendency-to-excuse" types assessed the hospital services differently. The "excuser" almost always provides the most positive of assessments and the "medium excuser" almost always provides the most negative.
CONCLUSIONS: The analyses revealed that fewer patients than initially expected on the basis of the traditional concept of the patient role excuse hospital errors and inconveniences. This can be seen as an indication that many inpatients do not take on the assumed patient role. While interpreting patient surveys, the "tendency-to-excuse" types can shed light on possible means of optimising hospital services. The "tendency to excuse" patients therefore aid in providing more valid measurements when conducting patient surveys.