Assessing Safety Culture as perceived by Nurses Working in Governmental Hospitals in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Background: Patient safety is a serious element of the quality of healthcare. Scientists define safety culture as the common values, perceptions and attitudes of safety within the institution, to reduce the percentage of patients' harm. The importance of safety culture has been recurrently accentuated to progress the quality and safety of health care. Aim: This study aimed to assess the perception of safety culture among nurses working in Governmental Hospitals in Saudi Arabia. Methodology: This research study used a descriptive, cross-sectional design to explore nurses' perception about safety culture and factors that influence patients' safety. The researcher used Safety Attitude Questionnaire (SAQ) to measure the perceptions and attitudes of nurses about patient safety. The study included 98 from a total of 198 nurses working at governmental hospitals in the Saudi Arabia. Results: The results of this study revealed that the total score of the SAQ was 70.2% with a mean of 3.51 (±0.69). The domain that ranked first was the stress recognition which had a score of 80% with a mean of 4.0 (±0.79) followed by safety climate with a score of 69.4% and a mean of 3.47 (±0.58), working conditions with a score of 69.2% and a mean of 3.46 (±0.66), job satisfaction with a score of 68.4% and a mean of 3.42 (±.79), teamwork climate with a score of 67.6% and a mean of 3.38 (±0.60). There were no correlations between all SAQ domains and age except years of experiences in nursing in general and working conditions (p-value (-0.034) and all SAQ domains with ears of experience. Conclusions: Improving nurses' perception of safety culture will improve patient safety and reduce the number of adverse events. This may have a positive impact on patient outcomes and contribute to reduced mortality and morbidity.