In 1999, the report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), pointed that there are significant adverse events and that more than half of these occurrences were caused by medical errors, provoking numerous actions and research on Patient Safety. Infections related to health care (IRAS), one of the problems faced in the area, are the subject of research that attempt to create procedures and strategies to prevent such events. Hand hygiene, because it is the simplest measure of control in IRAs and, paradoxically, the one with the lowest compliance rate among physicians, is the target of numerous programs and campaigns. The need to reverse this state has generated extensive literature that, among other things, indicates and identifies barriers and risk factors for poor adherence to standards and procedures for hands hygiene, but also seeks to understand the behavioral aspects concerned. This paper presents some theoretical models aimed at understanding the behavioral dynamics which involves the achievement of error and violation and carries out an analysis with the possibilities of apprehension of the process. Finally, it is considered that the explanatory models jointly presented bring contributions that can be applied in practice and that identifying and understanding the mechanisms of collective defense would lead to factors that are at stake in the low adherence to procedures, sanitation of hands among physicians, despite the existing evidence.
patient safety; medical error; violation
