Mitigating risk in Norwegian psychiatric care: Identifying triggers of adverse events through Global Trigger Tool for psychiatric care

BACKGROUND: Patients treated in psychiatric care are exposed to the risk of adverse events, similar to patients treated in somatic health care. OBJECTIVES: In this article we report the findings of triggers associated with adverse events (AEs) identified by a version of the Global Trigger Tool - Psychiatry (GTT-P) adapted for Norwegian hospital-based psychiatric treatment. METHODS: The design was a retrospective analysis of a random sample of 240 patient records from a psychiatric clinic in one Norwegian hospital. Patient records were sampled from both inpatient and outpatient psychiatric clinics in hospitals serving the northern part of the county of Trøndelag, Norway. RESULTS: Our analysis was based on the identification of 32 potential triggers of adverse events. Eighteen of the triggers were significantly related to adverse events. No adverse events were identified in patient records that did not also contain triggers included in the Global Trigger Tool. CONCLUSIONS: There is a clear relationship between the presence of triggers in a patient record and the likelihood of adverse events. Particularly relevant for psychiatric patients is 'suffering' as a trigger and this may also be relevant to somatic care and has implications for inclusion in the GTT-P.