Gal Iddo, Doron Israel
Department of Human Services, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel.
Int J Qual Health Care. 2007 Jun;19(3):158-63. doi: 10.1093/intqhc/mzm006. Epub 2007 Apr 19.
To examine the prevalence of informal complaints on health services among clients of Health Maintenance Organizations, and explore demographic correlates. Such complaints are a potentially important source of information regarding quality of healthcare.
Primary data were collected by a phone survey from a nationwide random sample of 1500 persons aged 21+ in Israel.
About 25% of the respondents reported a cause to complain, but only 9.5% actually complained. About 75% of the complainants submitted their grievances informally at the local level. Only a minority (17%) appealed to official bodies established by law. Minority groups and recent immigrants had significantly lower rates of reasons to complain and actual complaints.
Suggestions are made for outreach efforts to socially vulnerable groups and for developing organizational mechanisms for capturing and using future complaints submitted informally to front-line employees, which are the bulk of the complaints. Further research is needed regarding factors affecting customers complaining and non-complaining behavior, including factors that specifically affect the behavior of minority groups.
调查健康维护组织客户对医疗服务的非正式投诉发生率，并探究人口统计学相关因素。此类投诉是有关医疗质量的潜在重要信息来源。
通过电话调查从以色列全国范围内随机抽取1500名年龄在21岁及以上的人员收集原始数据。
约25%的受访者表示有投诉理由，但实际投诉的仅占9.5%。约75%的投诉者在当地以非正式方式提出不满。只有少数人（17%）向法定官方机构投诉。少数群体和新移民的投诉理由和实际投诉发生率显著较低。
针对社会弱势群体的外展工作以及建立组织机制以收集和利用未来非正式提交给一线员工的投诉（此类投诉占大多数）提出了建议。需要进一步研究影响客户投诉和不投诉行为的因素，包括特别影响少数群体行为的因素。
