Pediatric Patient Safety Incidents Before and During Covid-19: A Mixed-Methods Study

Abstract

Objective: to analyze the profile of pediatric patient safety incidents in a university hospital, with a particular focus on comparing notifications before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and on Nursing professionals' perception. Method: a mixed-methods and convergent strategy study conducted at a university hospital from southern Brazil. The data were collected from a database with 1,663 notifications between March and September 2021. After applying the inclusion criteria, a total of 418 records of patient safety incidents occurred between January 2019 and December 2020 were found, which were analyzed by descriptive statistics with SPSS 18.0; semi-structured interviews were carried out with 18 Nursing professionals, using thematic content analysis. Results: the safety incidents recorded in the pediatric units were more related to intravenous medications and fluids, male gender and infant age group. There were no relevant differences when comparing the notifications from 2019 (219) with those from 2020 (199), with a reduction of only 20 (-9.13%). In the professionals' perception, there was also no expressive change in this situation. Conclusions: the characteristics of the patient safety incidents that occurred in pediatric units showed few statistically significant differences in the periods investigated, corroborating the Nursing professionals' perception that there was no significant change in the institution's scenario regarding incidents. Strategies to encourage notifications and improvements in this system are still required to provide a safe environment to pediatric patients.