With many people giving anecdotal accounts of their own experiences Although there is a general feeling that misdiagnosis is quite common, , it is difficult to get exact data.
There is a relative lack of misdiagnosis studies. Whereas there are many studies of adverse drug events and nosocomial infections,
The National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) commissioned a phone survey in 1997 to review patient opinions about medical mistakes. Of the people reporting a medical mistake (42%), 40% reported a “misdiagnosis or treatment error”, but did not separate misdiagnosis from treatment errors. Respondents also reported that their doctor failed to make an adequate diagnosis in 9% of cases, and 8% of people cited misdiagnosis as a primary causal factor in the medical mistake. Loosely interpreting these facts gives a range of 8% to 42% rate for misdiagnoses.
Misdiagnosis rates in the ICU or Emergency Department have been studied, with rates ranging from 20% to 40%. These misdiagnosis rates are likely to be higher than the overall health care misdiagnosis rate because of the time-critical and serious nature of the diagnosis under these crisis conditions.
