Patient Safety Culture Perception Among Surgical Nurses

Background: Human and technology factors in healthcare can lead to errors that threaten human life. A strong patient safety culture in hospitals may be linked to better patient outcomes. Because of the potential for mistakes in surgical departments, surgical nurses are critical to establishing and maintaining a patient safety culture.

Aim: The aim of this study was to explore the patient safety culture perceptions of surgical nurses.

Methods: This descriptive study was performed with 206 nurses working in the surgical clinics and operating rooms of 1 university hospital, 2 public hospitals, and 1 private hospital. A “Questionnaire” and the “Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture” were used for data collection. The data were analyzed using mean, number, and percentage values, 1-way analysis of variance, Tukey Honestly Significant Difference (HSD), and chi-square tests.

Results: The study revealed that surgical nurses’ patient safety culture perception was at a medium level. The highest mean rate of positive responses in The Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture came from “Teamwork within units” and the lowest mean rate of positive answers came from the “Non-punitive response to errors” subdimension. In addition, 85.7% of the surgical nurses did not report any errors in the previous 1 year, and nurses who had been working for ≥11 years submitted more error reports (P = .001).

Conclusion: Nurses’ patient safety culture perception was at a medium level. Recommendations for improving patient safety culture should include on-the-job training programs and improvements in employees’ working conditions.