Balance of hospital legal medical counselling through exploratory factor analysis

Abstract Introduction The study of legal medicine approaches has been widely addressed in publications in the field of justice. However, the subject of hospital legal medicine services has been scarcely addressed in research; not attending to the importance of these services for the improvement of the legal risk management of health systems. Objective To recognize the factorial structure of the benefits of the legal medicine service in a high-level hospital, among those seeking consultation for problems arising from the hospital\u0027s healthcare activity. Material and Method A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out with a sample of 1213 files opened during the years 2007 and 2017. An exploratory factor analysis was performed by extraction of main components with varimax rotation. Results The average of records was 110.27 per year with a standard deviation of 39.51. The factorial analysis showed the two-dimensionality of the usefulness of the registry (letter of legal medicine services and medical-legal basis of the consultations), with the existence of two underlying factors that, added together, explained 68.04% of the total variance. Conclusions A simplified factor structure to two factors has been obtained with a high reliability of the registration questionnaire. Due to its registry nature and ease of use, it is advisable to consider its use in evaluating the demand for advice to the hospital legal medicine service by the different users who come for problems related to the usual activities of the hospital.