Patient safety incidents in primary healthcare in Manaus, AM, Brazil

Abstract

Patient safety means reducing the risk of unnecessary healthcare-associated damage to a minimum acceptable level. International studies show an occurrence of 2-3 patient safety incidents per 100 primary healthcare appointments, with similar frequency in Brazil. We conducted a descriptive study to identify patient safety incidents in Primary Healthcare in the Brazilian city of Manaus, state of Amazonas, in 2018, by voluntary notification of doctors selected by convenience sampling. The 105 collected notifications enabled to calculate an incidence of 3 safety incidents per 1,000 appointments in the studied quarter. In 82% of the incidents, the user was involved. In 39 notifications (37%), the damage was recorded—33% of them were minimum, 17% moderate, and 2 deaths. The results imply an incentive to actions of health education on user-related topics.