PATIENT SAFETY IN PRIMARY HEALTH CARE: AN INTEGRATIVE REVIEW

Abstract

This is an integrative review with the aim of analyzing scientific articlesaddressing patient safety in primary health care. It was conducted from January until March 2016 with national and international journals and with health sciences databases from the Virtual Library on Health. The author chose 10 articles that answered the guiding question: How does the literature depict the theme of patient safety in primary health care? With 2008 as the earliest publishing date, publication themes ranged from investigations on safety culture and the relation between patient safety and prevention of adverse events and incident assessment to translations of instruments for assessment of patient safety. It was possible to draw conclusions from content gathered during analysis about the importance of discussing safety to support the improvement of health care. The authors also found a need for more studies, considering the relevance of the theme and the limited scientific work on the theme.

Keywords

• Patient safety
• Primary health care
• Nursing care