Patient safety culture among nurses

BACKGROUND: Patient safety is considered to be crucial to healthcare quality and is one of the major parameters monitored by all healthcare organizations around the world. Nurses play a vital role in maintaining and promoting patient safety due to the nature of their work. AIMS: The purpose of this study was to investigate nurses' perceptions about patient safety culture and to identify the factors that need to be emphasized in order to develop and maintain the culture of safety among nurses in Oman. METHODS: A descriptive and cross-sectional design was used. Patient safety culture was assessed by using the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture among 414 registered nurses working in four major governmental hospitals in Oman. Descriptive statistics and general linear regression were employed to assess the association between patient safety culture and demographic variables. RESULTS: Nurses who perceived more supervisor or manager expectations, feedback and communications about errors, teamwork across hospital units, and hospital handoffs and transitions had more overall perception of patient safety. Nurses who perceived more teamwork within units and more feedback and communications about errors had more frequency of events reported. Furthermore, nurses who had more years of experience and were working in teaching hospitals had more perception of patient safety culture. CONCLUSION: Learning and continuous improvement, hospital management support, supervisor/manager expectations, feedback and communications about error, teamwork, hospital handoffs and transitions were found to be major patient safety culture predictors. Investing in practices and systems that focus on improving these aspects is likely to enhance the culture of patient safety in Omani hospitals and others like them. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING AND HEALTH POLICY: Strategies to nurture patient safety culture in Omani hospitals should focus upon building leadership capacity that support open communication, blame free, team work and continuous organizational learning.