AbstractsMedical & Health Science

Background and significance: Globally, medical errors kill and seriously injure millions of people every year. Jordan is a developing country intent on improving patient safety and quality of care. The literature indicates that improving patient safety culture is an effective strategy to decrease the incidence of medical errors. Understanding nursing perception of patient safety culture and its determinants is an important step to improve patient safety inside Jordanian hospitals.Objectives: To assess nurses’ perceptions of patient safety culture, to identify the main determinants of patient safety culture, and to examine the relationship between nurses’ perceptions of patient safety culture and reporting of adverse events in Jordanian public hospitals.Design and sample: The study is exploratory using a mixed-methods design. Qualitative data were provided by interviews with nurse managers (N = 9) at three managerial levels. Quantitative data were obtained through a survey from a convenient sample of staff nurses (N = 150) from five public hospitals in Jordan.Measurements: The survey included the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC) and two investigator-developed questions that measured nurses’ reporting of adverse events (medication errors and patient falls). Results: A total of 136 completed questionnaires were returned (response rate = 90.6%). The percent of positive responses to the 12 dimensions of the HSOPSC ranged from 25% to 74%, compared with 44% to 81% reported by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in 2014. The results indicate that nurses’ positive perceptions of safety culture were lower than in the US benchmark AHRQ study. The study found significant negative relationships between several dimensions of the HSOPSC and the nurses’ reporting of medication errors and patient falls. The findings indicate nurses with more positive perceptions toward patient safety culture reported fewer adverse events. The nursing managers’ interviews revealed that the main determinants of patient safety culture were safety training, nurses’ work environment, management support of safety culture, hospitals' characteristics, and nurses’ characteristics. In general, the findings of the study show the need for future research to improve patient safety culture inside Jordanian public hospitals.