Objective to estimate the prevalence and avoidability of surgical adverse events in a
teaching hospital and to classify the events according to the type of
incident and degree of damage.Method cross-sectional retrospective study carried out in two phases. In phase I,
nurses performed a retrospective review on a simple randomized sample of 192
records of adult patients using the Canadian Adverse Events Study form for
case tracking. Phase II aimed at confirming the adverse event by an expert
committee composed of physicians and nurses. Data were analyzed by
univariate descriptive statistics.Results the prevalence of surgical adverse events was 21.8%. In 52.4% of the cases,
detection occurred on outpatient return. Of the 60 cases analyzed, 90% (n =
54) were preventable and more than two thirds resulted in mild to moderate
damage. Surgical technical failures contributed in approximately 40% of the
cases. There was a prevalence of the infection category associated with
health care (50%, n = 30). Adverse events were mostly related to surgical
site infection (30%, n = 18), suture dehiscence (16.7%, n = 10) and
hematoma/seroma (15%, n = 9).Conclusion the prevalence and avoidability of surgical adverse events are challenges
faced by hospital management.