Patient Safety Protocols in Overcrowded Environments: in the context of nursing

Abstract

Objective: to identify if the nurses of an overcrowded hospital in Belém do Pará performed the patient's safety protocols. Material and methods: the research is descriptive of a field study with quantitative approach, conducted with 16 nurses from a reference public hospital in the care of high-risk pregnant women, located in the municipality of Belém, state of Pará, held in October and November 2018. A self-applicable form containing socio-demographic and labor data of the nurse and questions about the basic protocols of patient safety was used. The analysis and statistical comparisons between the variables were made using the GraphPad Prism 8, the categorical variables were tested with the bilateral Fisher's exact test, the continuous variables were tested through Pearson's correlation. Results: 12 (75%) nurses were mostly female, with a mean age of 45.5 years, most of them with training between 10-19 years 6 (37.5%). The protocol least performed by the participants is that of patient identification (56%). Less than half (37.5%) of the nurses responded positively to more than 75% of the form assertions. It was identified that the non-performance of the pressure injury protocol, which may be related to the lack of institutional continuing education on this subject (p = 0.0345). The longer the working day of the nurse, the lower the number of correct procedures performed (r = -0.3037). Conclusion: This article concluded that the basic patient safety protocols are being performed in overcrowded environments, and that the workload can negatively influence these results.