PATIENT SAFETY: SOCIAL REPRESENTATION FOR HOSPITAL HEALTH WORKERS

Abstract

Assessments of the current situation of patient safety are still scarce in Brazil, setting an obstacle to the design of strategies for prevention and resolution of errors and injuries related to health care. In order to evaluate the social representation for patient safety culture in the hospital environment, research was carried out to analyse the workers’ responses to a previously validated questionnaire. For the data process, the Alceste program was used, which performs a lexical analysis of a set of textual data, generating data and classes, which must be interpreted in the light of the initial questioning. The three generated classes have been infrastructure, errors and underreporting and work processes. The results indicate the main problems and present deficiencies in these institutions, professional vision, ranging from managerial and structural issues to factors that relate to professional conduct. Thus, it is expected that this information assists managers and government bodies as well as the professionals themselves as the measures that can lead to improvement of actions in health and improve the quality of services offered.