Perception of Patient Safety Risk Factors and Performance Level of Safety Care Activities among Hospital Nurses

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the level of perception of safety risk factors and the degree of performance of safety nursing activities in order to develop an education program to improve the safety of patients. Methods: The subjects were 217 nurses from 3 university hospitals in Incheon. Data were collected with structured questionnaires and analyzed using descriptive analysis, t-test, and ANOVA using SPSS 22.0. Results: The level of perception of patient's safety risk factors and safety care activities was 2.93 and 4.68, respectively. Perception of patient safety risk factors which belonging to the risk type of therapeutic devices, equipment, service and infrastructure all scored below average; also in addition, behavior, performance, and violence risk type and work system, information and communication risk type showed relatively low perception levels. Safety nursing activities showed a low level of performance in accurate communication among medical teams, management of fire and disaster, security management, use of restraints, identification of patients, and correct performance of operations and procedures. Conclusion: Based on these results, it is necessary to improve the safety of patients by taking proper management measures along with education.