Purpose : The purpose of this study is to survey the perception of importance of patient safety management, nursing work environment, patient safety competence and the degree of patient safety activities focusing on one university hospital nurses in o...
Purpose : The purpose of this study is to survey the perception of importance of patient safety management, nursing work environment, patient safety competence and the degree of patient safety activities focusing on one university hospital nurses in order to identify the factors that influence patient safety activities so that the results can be used as the basic data for improving the standards of patient safety activities
Method : This study was conducted after obtaining approval from the Institutional Review Board at W University Hospital. It is a descriptive survey study that analyses how nurses’ importance perception of patient safety management, nursing work environment, and patient safety competence affects patient safety activities. The survey participants were 220 nurses at a university hospital in J province. As a research tool, the importance perception of patient safety management was measured using the tool developed by Park et al. (2013) for measuring importance perception of patient safety management among hospital medical staff. The importance placed on nursing work environment was measured using the “Korean Version of the Practice Environment Scale of Nursing Work Index for Korean Nurses”, originally developed by Lake (2002) and subsequently adopted into Korean by Cho et al. (2011). For patient safety competence, the tool developed by Lee (2012) for nursing students was used; its was modified and supplemented by Jang (2013) on practicing nurses. Importance perception of patient safety activities was measured using the questionnaire-format tool adopted by Park (2013) from the contents of the 6 domains in the International Patient Safety Goals (IPSG) among the medical institution assessment items developed by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI). Data collection period was from September, 2021 to October, 2021 and the collected data were analyzed using SPSS 26.0 program. The general characteristics of the subjects were analyzed in terms of frequency, percentage, and mean and standard deviations. Differences in importance perception of patient safety management, nursing work environment, patient safety competence, and patient safety activities according to the general characteristics of the subjects were analyzed using t-test and one-way ANOVA while Scheffé test was used for post hoc analysis. Correlations between the importance perception of patient safety management, nursing work environment, patient safety competence, and patient safety activities were analyzed using Pearson’s Correlation Coefficients. A multiple regression analysis was conducted to identify factors affecting patient safety activities in subjects.
Results: The results of this study are as follows.
First, the general characteristics of subjects revealed that the majority of the subjects were female (187 subjects, 95.9%) aged 31 years or younger (123 subjects, 63.0%), and the mean age was 31.79 years (±8.86). As for marital status, 131 subjects (67.2%) were unmarried and 152 subjects (78.0%) had a bachelor’s degree (4-year university graduates). General nurses accounted for the highest percentage with 177 subjects (90.8%). Most subjects had a total clinical experience of 3 years or less (65 subjects, 33.4%). As for the current working unit, there were 56 subjects (28.7%) each for general ward and intensive care unit, 88 subjects (45.1%) saying that they had 1 to 3 years of experience in the current working environment. Regarding experience with medical institution certification assessment, 148 subjects (75.9%) responded “Yes” and 191 subjects (97.9%) said that they had been given patient safety training.
Second, for importance perception of patient safety management, the mean score was 3.78 (±0.51) out of 5; among the subdomains, perception had the highest score with 4.08 (±0.56) points while confidence had the lowest with 3.63 (±0.58) points. Nursing work environment was 3.04 (±0.52) points out of 5 on average, with the highest score of 3.31 (±0.52) points for the foundation for quality nursing and lowest score of 2.56 (±0.69) points for sufficient manpower and material support among the subdomains. Patient safety competence showed a mean of 3.83 (±0.45) points out of 5, among the subdomains, patient safety attitude had the highest score with 3.96 (±0.44) points while patient safety knowledge had the lowest with 3.29 (±0.70) points. Patient safety activities showed a mean of 4.40 (±0.50) points out of 5; among the subdomains, the highest and the lowest scores were found for high-risk drug management and communication among medical staff with 4.53 (±0.59) points and 4.05 (±0.75) points, respectively.
Third, the differences according to subject characteristics are as follows. The difference in the importance perception of patient safety management was significant according to age (t=5.12, p<.001), marital status (t=5.29, p<.001), level of education (F=5.48, p=.005), position (t=5.46, p<.001), total clinical experience (F=10.55, p<.001), and experience with medical institution certification assessment (t=2.85, p=.005). The difference in nursing work environment was statistically significant according to gender (t=2.10, p=.037), position (t=2.70, p=.008), total clinical experience (F=5.20, p=.001), and current working environment (F=3.03, p=.019). Patient safety competence showed significant differences according to age (t=3.04, p=.003), marital status (t=2.98, p=.003), level of education (F=5.78, p=.004), position (t=3.73, p<.001), and total clinical experience (F=6.14, p<.001). Patient safety activities showed statistically significant differences according to age (t=2.85, p=.005), marital status (t=2.91, p=.004), position (t=2.91, p=.004), total clinical experience (F=3.47, p=.009), experience in current working environment (F=3.36, p=.020), and experience with medical institution certification assessment (t=2.41, p=.018).
Fourth, when the correlations among importance perception of patient safety management, nursing work environment, patient safety competence, and patient safety management activities were examined, the importance perception of patient safety management showed a significant positive correlation with nursing work environment (r=.44, p<.001), patient safety competence (r=.61, p<.001), and patient safety management activities (r=.35, p<.001). Nursing work environment showed a significant positive correlation with patient safety competence (r=.28, p<.001) while patient safety competence had a significant positive correlation with patient safety management activities (r=.59, p<.001).
Fifth, the analysis of the factors affecting the patient safety management activities in nurses are as follows: more than 15 years of total clinical experience(β=-.24, p=.027), patient safety competence (β=.62, p<.001). With more than 15 years of clinical experience, patient safety competency 36% of factors affecting patient safety management activities were explained (F=13.23, p<.001). The factor that influenced patient safety management activities the most was patient safety competence.
Conclusion: The explanatory power of factors affecting patient safety management activities of nurses at a university hospital was 36%, followed by patient safety competency and total clinical experience of 15 years or more. Therefore, institutional devices should be prepared for university hospital nurses to continuously build clinical careers and extend their working period, a systematic and diverse training program should be developed to improve patient safety competence. In addition, it is considered that sufficient administrative support and evidence-based nursing guidelines are needed so that a system that can support patient safety competency can be provided. Furthermore, continuous attention and efforts are required to enhance patient safety competencies.