The impact of patient feedback on clinical practice.

Feedback from patients about the care they have received is an integral part of quality in health care. This article looks at the extent to which patient feedback impacts the performance of clinicians and provision of clinical care. A non-systematic literature search was conducted in a narrative form on five electronic databases, including English language peer-reviewed articles published within the last 18 years. The effects of patient feedback on clinicians' performance are mixed. The reviewed studies either reported no effects, small non-statistically significant improvements or few statistically significant changes in clinical practice. More policy-level actions and effective organizational leadership are required for the goal of incorporating patient feedback in quality improvement to promote patient centredness in care delivery to be fully realized.