Measurement of the incidence of care-associated adverse events at the department of pediatrics of a teaching hospital

Abstract

Introduction. Adverse events may be detected using different screening tools. In the pediatric population, the Pediatric Trigger Tool looks for triggers in the medical record to detect preventable and non-preventable care-associated harm. Objective. To measure the incidence of adverse events at the Department of Pediatrics using this tool. To know the types of events and associated outcome measures. Population and methods. Longitudinal cohort study. Results. A total of 318 patients were included; mean age: 2.99 years (range: 0-17); 164 (51.57 %) were girls. There were 11 % of events per 100 admissions, 15.5 events per 1000 patient-days. The most common events were associated with medication use: 48.57 % (n = 17); bacteriology (infections): 42.85 % (n = 15); and care: 8.57 % (n = 3). Nineteen events were mild (54.28 %), 14 (40 %) extended the length of stay (moderate), and 2 (5.71 %) required vital support (severe). A total of 168 triggers were detected; 0.53 triggers per patient, 74.4 triggers per 1000 patient-days, and 4.8 triggers per adverse event. In the multivariate logistic regression analysis, the outcome measures associated with the development of adverse events were high-risk medications, female sex, weight, number of transfers within the hospital, and length of stay longer than 5 days. Conclusions. Using the Pediatric Trigger Tool helped to identify adverse events in hospitalized pediatric patients and guide improvement measures based on associated outcome measures.