The Impact of Patient Safety Climate on Medical Errors in a Sample of Nurses: Creating Safer Health Care.

Abstract

Background: Patient safety is one of the major issues which are concerned with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the medical community in developing and developed countries. Based on Studies, about 10 % of patients admitted in hospitals will be damaged. Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate patient safety climate among nurses and their roles for predicting medical errors. Patients and Method: Questionnaire responses were obtained from 122 nurses. The questionnaire comprised four parts included 20 items related to patient safety climate, 6 items to Organizational factors, 15 items to influential factors on the incidence of medical errors and overall level of patient safety. The relationship between patient safety climate and factors in medical errors was evaluated by regression analysis using SPSS 17 software. Results: According to the results, there was a negative relationship between patient safety climate and factors affecting the incidence of medical errors (β = -0.22, P < 0.05). Also, poor safety climate was established among nurses (average of less than 3.5). Conclusions: As the nurses play direct roles associated with family members and healthcare professionals for providing safe and quality, therefore full attention to the safety climate is recommended for reducing medical errors and improving patient safety. The quality of Interactions among therapeutic members and assessing patient conditions and full dominance on treatment process will be extremely effective in health care.