Nurses’ attitude toward patients’ safety climate during COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study†

Abstract

Patient safety is a fundamental factor in improving the quality of care provided in hospitals. Therefore, it is considered a significant parameter by all healthcare organizations around the world. The present study was conducted to investigate the attitude of nurses toward the patient safety climate during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in the southeast of Iran. This is a cross-sectional descriptive study. Among all the nurses working in one of the hospitals in the southeast of Iran, 171 nurses participated in the study through convenience sampling methods. The survey was conducted between June 1 and July 30, 2020. A 2-part questionnaire including demographic information and an assessment of nurses’ attitudes toward patients’ safety climate was used for data collection in 2021. The content validity of the scale is (0.77) and reliability was re-calculated and confirmed by the present study with Cronbach’s alpha (α = 0.9). Data were analyzed by SPSS 20 (IBM Corporation, Armonk, New York, United States) using descriptive and analytical statistical tests. The mean score of safety climates was 3.2 ± 5.20 (out of 5 scores). The results showed that among all dimensions of the safety climate, only the education dimension was statistically significant between males and females (P < 0.001). Also, there was a significant relationship between the overall average of the safety climate and its dimensions according to the people’s position only in the dimension of supervisors’ attitude (P < 0.01) and burnout (P < 0.01). Additionally, a significant correlation between the education level and the overall score of safety climate (P < 0.01), as well as the supervisor’s attitude dimension (P < 0.01), was observed. The results showed that the safety climate was at a relatively favorable level. Considering the impact of nurses’ attitudes on the safety climate of patients, its improvement seems necessary. It is recommended to design training courses and educate nurses in order to promote a patients safety climate in hospitals.