Incident reporting at a tertiary care hospital in Saudi Arabia

This study aimed to examine the rates and categories of incident reports in an academic tertiary care center in Saudi Arabia both hospital-wide and in the intensive care unit (ICU). Such information would help in redesigning systems and in planning and developing strategies with the goal of improving patient safety and quality of care.

In this descriptive study, we evaluated all incident reports submitted through the paper-based reporting system in the hospital and the ICU for the year 2008. Incident report rates were calculated as the number of incident reports per 1000 patient days. We also reviewed the major and minor categories of the generated reports.

A total of 3041 incident reports were submitted from all hospital areas; yielding a rate of 5.8 per 1000 patient days. Sixty-two incident reports were reported from the ICU, yielding a rate of 5.8 per 1000 patient days. The most frequent type of incident reports was procedural variances (37%), followed by behavior and communication incidents (34%), hazardous and safety incidents (9.5%), and medication errors (7.4%). In the ICU, the most frequently reported type of incidents was behavior and communication incidents (30.6%), followed by procedural variances (21%) and medication errors (13%).

Rates of incident reports at a tertiary care center in Saudi Arabia were low compared with reported international rates. The main categories of incident reports were related to procedural variances and behavior and communication incidents. These findings suggest that patient safety initiatives should focus primarily on these 2 domains. Additional prospective research is needed in this important area to further understand patient safety challenges and reporting practice and culture in the country.