Assessment Study of Nurses' Attitudes Regarding the Safety of Care in Surgical Patients

Abstract

Background and Aim: The modern surgical environment is complex and has a high potential risk of medical errors. In this context, the attitudes of healthcare professionals regarding patient safety represent an important component of organizational safety culture. Materials and Methods: We conducted a study in which we used the "Safety Attitudes Questionnaire", a standardized questionnaire with six scales: Teamwork Climate, Safety Climate, Job Satisfaction, Stress Recognition, Perception of Management and Work Conditions. The scores ≥75 signified positive attitudes of the respondents. Statistical data analysis was performed with the SPSS Statistics 20 program. Results: We included in the study 70 nurses, 46% from Anesthesia and Intensive Care Units (AICU) and 54% from surgical wards, most with secondary education (81%) and female gender (88%). The average age was 42.2±7.6 years and the average professional experience was 14.05±8.7 years. The lowest percentage of respondents with a positive attitude was identified for the Management Perception scale (53%), followed by the Stress Recognition scale (57%) and the Work Conditions scale (63%). On the other hand, the highest percentage of respondents with a positive attitude was associated with the Job Satisfaction scale (91%), followed by the Safety Climate scale (74%) and the Teamwork Climate scale (73%). The comparison of the average scores of the six scales for nurses from the two types of departments showed that there are significant differences in two scales: Stress Recognition, with higher scores in AICU, and Work Conditions, with lower scores in AICU. Conclusions: The low percentages of nurses with positive attitudes regarding the institutional management, stress recognition and work conditions highlight the need to implement effective strategies to improve organizational safety culture in hospitals, especially in AICU. The results are consistent with the literature and argue for the development of institutional educational programs and voluntary error reporting systems to achieve proactive professional safety attitudes.