Significant differences in the quality of incident reports – a comparison of four acute hospitals in Finland

Abstract The aim of the study was to compare the quality of the description of the content of patient safety incident reports of ‘near miss’ and ‘adverse event’ occurrences and to examine whether the contributing factors behind the incident were identified. Data were collected from an electronic incident reporting system for a 1-year period (2015) in four acute hospitals in Finland. The analysis framework was based on the incident reporting guidelines, and the data were analysed using statistical methods. The most deficiencies were in records of the consequences of the event for the staff and unit (47%) and the consequences of the event (35%). The description of the content of ‘near miss’ situations did not differ significantly from ‘adverse event’ situations, but statistically significant differences were found between the hospitals in the quality of the description of the content of incident reports. Incident reports did not always identify the processes behind the incident or the factors that contributed to the occurrence of the incident, such as human error. Blaming was still evident in the incident report descriptions.