Nurses’ Perception Regarding Their Role for Maintaining Patients’ Safety inside the Operating Room

Abstract

Securing patient safety and preventing mistakes are described as key elements in the operating room that should be maintained by surgical team specially nurses, who are the most available with the patients inside the operating room, all the time, that play an important role to maintain patient safety. The operating room is a high-tech and stressful work environment in which the patients are exposed to invasive procedures, which lead to many hazards. Aim the study: To explore nurses’ perception regarding their role for maintaining patients’ safety inside the operating room. Methods: A phenomenological qualitative research design approach was used, 20 nurses were recruited from different operating rooms in one of the governmental hospitals in Cairo. The required data were collected during in-depth and semi-structured interviews through using an audio recording; in this study a purposive sampling technique was utilized. Results: 18 nurses out of 20 nurses realized the importance of their role regarding maintaining patients’ safety inside the operating room, as well the precautions that should be done to maintain patients’ safety. Concerning preservations that should be done to maintain patients’ safety, 17 nurses out of 20 nurses recognized the importance of implementing aseptic technique inside operating room. Additionally, all the 20 nurses were aware by their responsibilities regarding counting all items that are used during surgical operations accurately is crucial, and prevention of infection at the site or surgical operation. However, 50% of them mentioned that over workload has negative effect on the quality of work in relation to maintaining patients’ safety. Conclusion: The qualitative findings of this study showed that information about some issues related to awareness about safety measures among operating room nurses are clearly stated; as well the importance of conducting educational training for the nurses will have positive effect on the patients’ safety. Recommendations: This study recommended that, more supportive and effective strategies should be provided to enhance and maintain patients’ safety. Additionally, this study is recommended using mixed study approach quantitative and qualitative to gain more focus understanding about nurses’ perception as well as patients’ safety inside the operating room. Finally, conducting similar studies, in the future, is recommended using individual interview not group interview and including all the surgical team not only the nurses.