Question

A hospital gives a survey to all surgical patients asking them to rate the quality of their hospital experience. One month after surgery, the hospital contacts the patients again to ask if there were any complications from the surgery. Last year, the results of the surveys showed that of the patients who had a poor hospital experience, 23% had post-surgical complications. What conclusion can be drawn from this study?

Answer 1

The 23% represents a small population of ALL surgical patients that were surveyed, not just those with complications and a poor hospital experience. 

What do we know about the patients that had a good hospital experience? Did some of those have complications too? Not much can be said for that group, given the information in the problem. 

The majority of the patients had a good hospital experience and no complications.