Background: The safety of surgery is a widely recognized problem throughout the world. Comprehensive patient safety in the surgical area is a key component of the quality of nursing care. The development of information tools such as the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist can promote the early identification of the most frequent problems in nursing care. Nevertheless, previous studies indicate that, despite the many benefits of the systematic implementation and use of checklists in operating rooms, achieving full adherence to it by the medical and nursing professionals is not an easy task, as their performance is not usually as constant or consistent as it should be. Objective: To determine the level of application of preventive measures for the safety of the surgical patient in the Navy Medical Center in the period between August and December 2019. Methods: An observational, exploratory and retrospective study was carried out using a sample of 307 cases obtained based on a selective-intentional, non-probabilistic, incidental sampling by consecutive cases and by quotas. The data collection instrument consisted of a checklist that grouped for each clinical record the evaluable data on the parameters established in the clinical practice guide Preventive interventions for safety in surgical patients, as well as the corresponding to the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist, the nursing sheet, the anesthesia sheet, informed consent for surgery, and pre-anesthetic assessment. The working hypothesis was that the level of application of preventive interventions for the safety of the surgical patient would be less than 80%.Descriptive statistical analysis was performed using SPSS v.20.0 software. Results: The percentage of fulfillment of certain preventive security measures was very variable. The data obtained reveals that there is still a long way to go in order to achieve 100% compliance with the safety measures in surgery. Only in the cases of taking informed consent and confirming the risk of bleeding, full compliance was observed. Meanwhile, in the rest of the measures contained in the safety checklist, percentage of non-compliance ranges between 3% and 8%. Conclusions: Compliance with most of the preventive interventions for the safety of the surgical patient occurred in more than 80% of the cases. Only presurgical soap bath obtained less than 80% of the compliance frequency, which may be due to a bias in the records.
