Professor Cidalina da Conceição Ferreira de Abreu completed her PhD in Psychology (specialization in Education Psychology) with Distinction and Honors on 7 December 2015 at the University of Coimbra with a thesis entitled “The nurses’ perception of the error in clinical practice: implications for care planning and training”.
Within the scope of this study, developed in 17 hospitals of the central region of Portugal, with the participation of 1165 nurses (33.53% of those who received questionnaires), the ESEnfC researcher found that it is urgent to change how we deal with the errors associated with Nursing practices, arguing that this issue should also be included in the curricula.
Cidalina Abreu believes that i tis necessary for professionals, and even students to “develop psychosocial skills to manage the clinical error”, since the 1st cycle of studies (Bachelor’s Degree) and from a lifelong learning perspective.
According to the results obtained in the study developed by the ESEnfC teacher between 2008 and 2015, “the most common emotion” experienced by the nurses regarding the consequences of the error in clinical practice “was anger, followed by guilt”. The most commonly reported errors fall in the category of “Safe Medication Administration” (63.95%).
With regard to the nurses’ perception of the causes for the error, “the most frequent aspect was that they had decided too quickly on the procedures to the performed on the patient”, but also the “lack of attention” and “an erroneous evaluation of the patient situation”.
As for the factors of the professional context which contributed to the error, “the participants mentioned the stressful environment at the ward”.
Cidalina Abreu argues for “the need to achieve a safety culture” that leads to changes in the “traditional paradigm focused on punishment” towards a “more open culture of learning with the errors”.
The PhD thesis of Professor Cidalina Abreu was supervised by PhD Professor Maria Paula Barbas Albuquerque Paixão and PhD Professor Manuel Alves Rodrigues.
