Fewer than one per cent of complaints against medical practitioners are unfounded or "vexatious", an Australian report says.
While they can have a devastating effect on doctors and other health professionals, the University of Melbourne has found patients rarely make such complaints.
However, measures intended to protect practitioners from baseless complaints may discourage people with legitimate grievances from speaking up.
"Claims that the problem is rampant are largely based on a non-representative, self-selected sample of practitioner anecdotes," the report released on Monday said.
It was commissioned by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency off the back of a senate inquiry into medical complaints processes.
The report found practitioners who accused their patients of making unfounded complaints were often engaged in unprofessional conduct themselves.
"The complaint is more likely to be vexing than vexatious," the research found, defining a vexatious complaint as one without any basis and made to cause distress or harm.
While a lack of international research made it difficult to work out exactly how common they were, the university suggested it was no more than one per cent of complaints in Australia and globally.
