Background:

an adverse event is an injury acquired by the patient through medical procedure. Health care involves many risks that arises from factors such as intrinsic, extrinsic, and including those of the system. The consequences are diverse: morbidity, mortality, prolonged hospitalization, high complexity care, disability and legal problems for the health institution. Nursing professionals that give importance to quality attention and patient safety play an important role in health institutions.

Objective:

to describe the occurrence of an adverse event in the intensive care unit and internal medicine unit.

Methods:

a cross sectional study of quantitative, observational and descriptive type among hospitalized patients in the intensive care unit and internal medicine unit of Dr. Gustavo Domínguez General Hospital in Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, from June to July of 2018. The sample of the study was 125 patients. A checklist for collecting clinical data, risk factors and associated adverse event was designed and validated by a group of experts.

Results:

among the 125 patients evaluated, 63 % presented at least 1 adverse event. Internal Medicine is the unit that showed the highest occurrence of adverse events, specifically, among patients with hospital stay of more than seven days. In the same area, phlebitis was the adverse event most reported.

Conclusions:

the high incidence of adverse events found in both wards during the research study suggests that there is a need to review the attention given to patients in order to achieve quality healthcare which is the main goal of health professionals in the Ecuador.

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