Patient safety culture in intensive care units: perspective of health professionals

Abstract

Objective: To identify the patient safety culture in intensive care units. Method: This qualitative, exploratory-descriptive study was conducted with five physicians, five nurses and 24 nursing technicians working in the intensive care units of two hospitals in the South of Brazil: one public and one philanthropic. Semi-structured inter-views were held in September and October 2016 and analyzed using discursive textual analysis. Results: Two categories emerged: Perception of error and Error management. Conclusion: The professionals acknowledge the existence of errors in health care and assign their occurrence to individual failures and failures accruing from the organizational system but support a non-punitive culture of safety and encourage collective learning.