Abstract
Objective
To assess the incidence of adverse events and associate them with nursing workload, nursing team staffing and the severity of the patients.
Method
A quantitave, cross-sectional, prospective study was conducted with 304 consecutive patients admitted to the General Intensive Care Unit of a private hospital between September and December 2013 (four months).
Results
There were 39 adverse events, and the most prevalent was pressure sore. Patients who presented an event had a higher mean age, higher prevalence of clinical admissions, longer hospital stay, higher scores in the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II and in the Nursing Activities Score (NAS) and lower score in the Braden scale and in the Glasgow scale. There was no significant difference regarding nursing team staffing.
Conclusion
There was a higher incidence of adverse events in patients who presented a profile of greater risk and severity identified by predictive scales.
Quality of health care; Patient safety; Critical care nursing; Workload; Intensive care units