Occurrence of adverse events in the activity of hospital wards in the opinions of doctors and nursing management staff

Abstract

Introduction An adverse event is an incident induced while providing health care services or resulting from it, not related to the natural course of a given disease or health condition, which causes or is likely to cause negative consequences for the patient, including their death, a threat to life, the necessity of hospitalisation or its prolongation, permanent or considerable health detriment; or is a foetal disease, congenital defect or the result of foetal damage. Objective The aim of this analysis is to explore the problem of the occurrence of adverse events from the perspective of doctors and ward nurses who manage wards. Material and methods The research on the occurrence of adverse events among doctors and nurses (the management staff) was conducted with the use of a postal survey. Results It was ascertained that 86.5% of the medical personnel had taken part in an adverse event, of which 20.2% took part in an occurrence associated with pharmacotherapy, 16.2% – in an event related to diagnostics and diagnosis, or an infection – 15.7%. 14.2% of respondents were involved in an occurrence linked to a medical device malfunction, and 14.1% – in an adverse event related to an operation. Conclusions The adverse events most often identified in the nursing professional group are occurrences associated with pharmacotherapy, and in the doctors’ professional group – occurrences related to diagnostics and diagnosis. The research established that the most frequent reason for not informing patients about the occurrence of an adverse event is fear of their filing a complaint. Medical management staff show high acceptance of an adverse event reporting system as a tool for improving patient safety.

Keywords

• adverse events
• patient safety
• quality of health care