Potentially hazardous drugs: Identification of risks and error prevention barriers in intensive care

Abstract

Objective: to investigate the knowledge of nursing professionals and pharmacists in relation to the identification of potentially hazardous drugs, as well as the recognition of error prevention barriers in their use in hospital institutions. Method: cross-sectional survey performed in intensive care units of four hospitals. A questionnaire constructed and validated based on the information provided by the Institute for Safe Practices in Drug Use was used for data collection. Statistical Package for Social Sciences, version 22.0 and the Kruskal-Wallis test were used to analyze the data between the professional categories. The significance level was set at 0.05. Results: 126 professionals were included, among those eligible for participation. Of the 33 potentially hazardous drugs indicated in the instrument, none were identified as such by all respondents, although 17 were used by more than 95% of respondents. No statistically significant difference was observed in the responses of the different professional categories regarding the identification of these drugs. Regarding the measures of error prevention, nurses were the professional category that distinguished the existence of barriers at a higher rate. Conclusion: this study pointed to important gaps in the recognition of potentially hazardous drugs and incipient adoption of barriers to prevent incidents, characterizing situations of fragility in hospitals because it implies the initial rupture of barriers, especially when the health professionals are inserted in high-complexity services.