yasamin salemipour

Annually, millions of patients in the world are injured and die due to unsafe medical care. In order to manage this issue, it is important to examine the safety status and the factors affecting it. Because of their essential role in the healthcare system and their responsibility for at least half of the patient's health and safety services in hospitals, nurses are considered as one of the most important influencing factors in this field. The culture of patient safety in the sense of accepting patient safety as the first priority and measuring this importance in order to minimize unsafe medical care has a special priority. Therefore, this research was conducted to determine the status of patient safety culture and its related factors from the perspective of nurses working in hospitals affiliated to Bushehr University of Medical Sciences, Iran.

This descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study included 595 nurses working in hospitals affiliated to Bushehr University of Medical Sciences. Data were collected using two questionnaires of demographic information and the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC). Data were analyzed using SPSS Ver.19 and univariate and multivariate linear regression statistical tests.

The results showed that the mean score of patient safety culture from the nurses’ point of view (133.79±12.30) was moderate. 75.3 and 24.7 percent of the participants reported the patient safety culture as moderate and weak, respectively. None of the participants reported an excellent safety culture. Interest in nursing had a statistically significant and positive relationship with patient safety culture (p> 0.001; β=0.141). Other demographic and occupational variables had no statistically significant relationship with patient safety culture (P>0/05).

Considering the moderate level of safety culture, reviewing ways to improve twelve safety culture indicators should be on the managers' agenda. Because with increasing interest in the nursing profession, the culture of patient safety rises from the point of view of nurses, attention to the interest in the field should be operationalized when admitting students. It is also necessary to try to attract interested personnel and create organizational support for the sustainability of this interest to improve patient safety.