The Impact Nursing Students’ Nursing Professionalism on Patient Safety Competency: The Mediating Effect of Communication Skills

Key Points

• This study aims to examine the mediation effect of communication skills on the relationship between nursing professionalism and patient safety competency.
• Participants included 186 nursing students from a university in G city, data collected from March 3 to March 31, 2026.
• Analysis was performed using SPSS/WIN 21.0, involving descriptive statistics, t-tests, ANOVA, Scheffe's post-hoc test, and Pearson correlation coefficients.
• Hierarchical regression analysis was conducted to determine the mediating effect following the three-step validation procedure by Baron and Kenny (1986).
• Patient safety competency showed a significant positive correlation with communication skills (r=0.70, p<0.01).
• Nursing professionalism also maintained a strong positive correlation with patient safety competency (r=0.84, p<0.01).
• Communication skills significantly impacted patient safety competency (β=0.18, p<0.01), with nursing professionalism also significantly affecting patient safety competency (β=0.71, p<0.01).