ADVERSE EVENTS IN PATIENTS WITH COVID-19 ADMITTED TO INTENSIVE CARE UNITS

Abstract

Introduction: patient safety is defined as reducing the risk of unnecessary harm associated with health care to an acceptable minimum. Adverse events are classified as unintentional harm resulting from care, which results in harm to the patient, and are at greater risk of occurring in patients admitted to intensive care units, such as critically ill patients affected by SARS-CoV-2.

Objective: to assess the prevalence of adverse events in patients with COVID-19 admitted to intensive care units.

Methods: cross-sectional, descriptive study, carried out in a regional referral hospital in the interior of Bahia, with patients of both sexes and aged 18 years or older, admitted to COVID-19 intensive care units in 2020 and 2021. Data tabulation was performed in Microsoft Excel® and statistical analysis occurred in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences®, version 21.0. The project was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the State University of Southwest Bahia, according to protocol no. 5,540,827 and CAAE 39003220.1.0000.0055.

Results: 488 medical records were analyzed, with the majority of patients being male (53.3%), elderly (60.5%), black/brown race/color (96.0%) and with systemic arterial hypertension (67.0%). The most frequent adverse events were pressure injury (23.8%), healthcare-associated infections (16.8%) and more than 14 days on invasive mechanical ventilation without performing tracheostomy (15.8%).

Conclusion: the most frequent adverse events may be related to the situation in which critically ill patients with COVID-19 were subjected, requiring mechanical ventilation for long periods, sedated and without much mobility in bed.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.56238/sevened2025.031-006