Alharbi Talal Ali F, Rababa Mohammad, Alsuwayl Hamad, Alsubail Abdulmajeed, Alenizi Waleed Sulaiman
Department of Psychiatric, Mental Health and Community Health, College of Nursing, Qassim University, Buraydah, Saudi Arabia.
College of Nursing, Sulaiman Al Rajhi University, Al Bukayriah, Saudi Arabia.
J Multidiscip Healthc. 2025 May 30;18:3051-3064. doi: 10.2147/JMDH.S512254. eCollection 2025.
Accurate diagnosis is critical for patient safety, guiding treatment and preventing harm. Diagnostic errors remain prevalent, contributing to avoidable harm, increased healthcare costs, and morbidity. Understanding diagnostic accuracy is essential to improving clinical outcomes.
This review aims to systematically explore the impact of accurate diagnosis on patient safety, identifying challenges in current diagnostic practices and strategies for improvement.
A comprehensive search of PubMed, CINAHL, the Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar was conducted from 2010-2024. Initial screening yielded 579 records, using keywords like "accurate diagnosis", "diagnostic errors", and "patient safety." A full-text review of 125 studies was conducted after duplicates were eliminated and titles and abstracts were screened for relevancy. Exclusion criteria excluded studies with inadequate data, non-English publications, and opinion pieces, while inclusion criteria mandated that studies concentrate on patient safety and diagnostic accuracy in acute care settings. Ultimately, 26 studies were found to meet the final eligibility requirements and were added to the review. Retrospective cohort studies and randomized controlled trials were among the study designs.
Accurate diagnosis was found to improve treatment efficacy, enhances patient safety, and reduces unnecessary procedures. Challenges include cognitive biases, insufficient diagnostic tools, and fragmented care. Technological advancements, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, were found to significantly enhance diagnostic precision. Despite these benefits, variability in clinical skills and systemic barriers remain substantial obstacles.
Accurate diagnosis is essential to enhancing patient safety. The results of this review indicate that using AI tools, improving clinician training, and creating standardized diagnostic procedures may help reduce diagnostic errors; however, because of the small dataset and lack of meta-analysis, the findings should be interpreted cautiously. To further evaluate the effect of diagnostic accuracy on patient safety, future research should concentrate on carrying out larger-scale studies and statistical validations.
准确诊断对于患者安全、指导治疗和预防伤害至关重要。诊断错误仍然普遍存在，会导致可避免的伤害、医疗成本增加和发病率上升。了解诊断准确性对于改善临床结果至关重要。
本综述旨在系统探讨准确诊断对患者安全的影响，识别当前诊断实践中的挑战以及改进策略。
对2010年至2024年期间的PubMed、CINAHL、Cochrane图书馆和谷歌学术进行了全面检索。初步筛选产生了579条记录，使用了“准确诊断”、“诊断错误”和“患者安全”等关键词。在消除重复记录并筛选标题和摘要的相关性后，对125项研究进行了全文审查。排除标准排除了数据不足、非英文出版物和观点文章的研究，而纳入标准要求研究集中于急性护理环境中的患者安全和诊断准确性。最终，发现26项研究符合最终的合格要求并被纳入综述。研究设计包括回顾性队列研究和随机对照试验。
发现准确诊断可提高治疗效果、增强患者安全并减少不必要的程序。挑战包括认知偏差、诊断工具不足和护理碎片化。发现包括人工智能（AI）和机器学习在内的技术进步可显著提高诊断精度。尽管有这些好处，但临床技能的差异和系统障碍仍然是重大障碍。
准确诊断对于提高患者安全至关重要。本综述的结果表明，使用人工智能工具、改善临床医生培训和创建标准化诊断程序可能有助于减少诊断错误；然而，由于数据集较小且缺乏荟萃分析，研究结果应谨慎解释。为了进一步评估诊断准确性对患者安全的影响，未来的研究应集中于开展更大规模的研究和统计验证。
