Representações sociais dos profissionais da enfermagem de uma UTI de um hospital geral sobre eventos adversos

Abstract

The occurrences of adverse events have significantly impacted the Unified Health System by causing an increase in morbidity, mortality, hospitalization time, patient treatment and care expenses. The incidents associated with the provision of the care offered are defined by the World Health Organization as an avoidable event unrelated to the preexisting pathology, unwanted complications resulting from the care, not attributed to the natural evolution of the disease. The research aims to analyze how the social representations of the nursing professionals who work in an intensive care unit of a general hospital regarding adverse events affect the nursing care offered. This is an exploratory, descriptive study with a qualitative approach, which allows us to understand the interpretation that individuals make of a certain phenomenon, demystifying common sense ways of thinking towards scientific knowledge. The study was carried out in the general intensive care unit of the Hospital Regional do Oeste Catarinense. Participants were 16 professionals from the nursing team working in the intensive care unit with a minimum of six months working in the hospital institution. Data were collected individually through semi-structured interviews, between September and October 2022. For data analysis, the IRAMUTEQ program was used. The results show that the social representation of error is strongly linked to medication error with significant relevance in daily practices. The medication error is highlighted through the words “medication”, “patient”, “name”, “route” and “change”. The error is recognized as a human possibility in the daily care provided in the intensive care unit and related to daily tasks laden with human automatism and “unconscious” practices. They attribute the ability to observe, calmness, team support, conversation during the development of care actions, in addition to the importance of knowledge, training, guidance and a favorable environment as tools that, according to their practices, can avoid errors. Fostering new social representations about errors based on debates and mainstreaming of this theme in daily work and health education.