Patient safety incidents and adverse events reported by Brazilian citizens: a descriptive study, 2014-2018

Objective: To describe incidents related to healthcare services reported by Brazilian citizens on the Health Surveillance Notification System. Methods: This was a descriptive study, using the database from the Health Surveillance Notification System (Notivisa) of the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency (Anvisa), 'citizen' module, between 2014 and 2018. Results: 935 incidents were reported, most of them occurred among females (60.9%), the elderly (20.1%) and those of white race/skin color (51.0%). The majority of the reported incidents were related to the use of medications (50.8%), falls (7.5%) and healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) (7.2%), which occurred during provision of healthcare, treatment or surgery (37.3%), in daytime (58.3%) and in hospital setting (37.4%). Conclusion: It could be seen a low adherence to the notification system among the citizens. There was a higher frequency of incidents related to medications, falls and HAIs. This shows that citizens have the capability to recognize and report these incidents as patient safety issues.