The application of Iberoamerican study of adverse events (IBEAS) methodology in Brazilian hospitals

To assess the prevalence of adverse events (AE) and to investigate its association with factors related to the patient and to hospital admission.

Cross-sectional study.

Four general hospitals located in the southeastern region of Brazil.

All patients admitted to the participating hospitals at the time of the study were surveyed.

The methodology was based on the Iberoamerican study of adverse events, a two-stage medical record review.

Medical records were screened for AE only in the day (24-h) immediately before the review process, independently of the admission date.

A total of 695 admissions were examined. Prevalence was 12.8%. Almost 43% of AE were preventable. More than 60% of patients with an event prolonged hospital stay. In final regression model, urgent admission (OR: 2.68; Confidence Interval (CI) 95%: 1.53-4.69), submission to a procedure (odds ratio (OR): 2.41; CI 95%: 1.33-4.39), presence of central venous catheter (OR: 2.25; CI 95%: 1.14-4.41) and immunosuppressive therapy (OR: 3.41; CI 95%: 1.57-7.40) were statistically associated with AE.

Our results indicate that around 1.3 AE happen in each 10 hospital admissions in Brazil. As patient safety continues to be a Public Health concern worldwide and mainly in developing countries, this would indicate the potential use of prevalence measures for monitoring patient safety in Brazilian context.