Culture of Safety among Nurses in a Tertiary Teaching Hospital in Saudi Arabia

Purpose: To assess the culture of safety among nurses in a tertiary teaching hospital in Saudi Arabia.
Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in King Khaled University Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A random sample of 492 nurses was included in the survey using a pre-validated instrument, Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ).
Results: Of the questionnaires given to 492 nurses, only 418 complete ones were returned, giving a response rate of 84.9 %. Most of the participants (354, 84.7 %) were staff nurses and the majority, 112 (26.8 %), had working experience of ≥ 20 years. Job satisfaction was perceived as the most common dimension of culture of safety among nurse participants (92.7 ± 14.6) followed by working conditions (82.1 ± 16.6) and safety (75.5 ± 15.5) and teamwork (75.5 ± 16.7). Stress recognition (41.9 ± 25.2) and perception of management (68.1 ± 19.1) ranked as the least common dimensions of safety culture among study subjects. A significant difference in mean score was found between males and females for both working conditions (p = 0.035) and teamwork (p = 0.045). Significant differences were also observed in terms of job satisfaction dimension scores with regard to years of work experience (p = 0.045). A significant differences was also observed in terms of stress recognition dimension scores in terms of years of work experience (p = 0.007).
Conclusion: Efforts are needed from healthcare authorities to increase nurses’ perception of management and stress recognition in order to improve safety culture among nurses in Saudi Arabia.

Keywords
Nurses; Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ); Safety culture; Working conditions; Teamwork; Job satisfaction