Patient safety in hospital care: A review of the patient's perspective

Abstract

The goal was to review the literature on incidents and adverse events and their contributing factors in hospital care, described according to the patient's perspective. A review was carried out of articles published in the MEDLINE, Scopus and LILACS databases between 2008 and 2019. From the 2,686 studies initially found, 167 were pre-selected for reading and then 24 were selected and classified based on a thematic analysis of their content. Four categories resulted from the information extracted from the 24 articles: terminology used to define incidents and adverse events, especially different terms such as error and medical error; incidents and adverse events identified by patients, family members and caregivers related to medication, surgery, health care-related infections, falls and pressure injuries; patients' perception of factors that contribute to unsafe care, especially problems related to communication, hand washing and patient identification; suggestions from patients to prevent the occurrence of incidents and adverse events, including training staff, drawing up checklists, listening to patients and adapting the environment. Patients were able to identify incidents, adverse events and contributing factors in health care. Alongside information from staff, their reports can potentially contribute to the provision of safer health care.