Banca de DEFESA: SILVIA LETICIA LIMA DE ARAUJO MARTINS

QUALITY IMPROVEMENT OF PRESSURE RUDE PREVENTION IN AN INTENSIVE CARE UNIT

Pressure Ulcer; Quality Improvement; Patient Safety.

Introduction: Pressure injuries are one of the most frequent adverse events in healthcare environments worldwide, with a significant impact on patients and healthcare services. Despite the negative potential, most of these injuries are preventable through the provision of quality health services and a focus on prevention. Improvement projects are a strategy for implementing effective and lasting pressure injury prevention programs. Objective: To improve the quality of the pressure injury prevention process in an adult Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Method: This is a study with a quantitative approach, almost experimental design, of the before and after type, without a control group, developed through the implementation of a quality improvement project, in an ICU, in the municipality of Currais Novos, Rio Grande do Norte, carried out from January 2022 to July 2023. The project was developed following the steps of an improvement cycle. The level of quality of injury prevention was measured before and after the interventions using six quality criteria. Interventions were didactically divided into two strategic lines: changes in records related to pressure injury prevention care and awareness/training of the multidisciplinary team on pressure injury prevention. In the second evaluation, the absolute and relative improvements of each of the criteria were estimated, as well as their statistical significance. Results: The initial quality assessment showed that the level of compliance of pressure ulcer prevention was low, with practically all the criteria with rates below 50%. After the interventions, there was an increase in the compliance of almost all criteria, with the exception of the assessment of the skin on admission, which showed a slight decrease. Conclusions: It was possible to improve the quality of the injury prevention process, despite the contextual factors that interacted to make implementation difficult. But the results indicate that there is still room for further improvement, especially in bed repositioning and skin assessment on admission. Furthermore, this improvement process needs to be continuous and dynamic.