Determinants of Nurses’ Safety Attitudes in a Hospital Setting

Abstract

Hospital patient safety socialization is a routine part of nursing care. Although nurses’ knowledge of patient safety affects nurses’ safety attitudes, such knowledge may not be optimal. This study explored potential factors determining nurses’ safety attitudes in a hospital setting. This was a quantitative study with a cross-sectional design. The study population comprised 376 nurses who were recruited using the purposive sampling method. The instruments were valid and reliable. The test results were as follows: job satisfaction: 0.356 – 0.575 (Cronbach’s alpha: 0.724); workload: 0.338 – 0.613 (Cronbach alpha: 0.736), job stress: 0.542 – 0.719 (Cronbach’s alpha: 0.756); head nurse’s management function: 0.401 – 0.822 (Cronbach’s alpha: 0.760); working conditions: 0.488 – 0.670 (Cronbach’s alpha: 0.767); and nurses’ safety attitudes: 0.300–0.827 (Cronbach’s alpha: 0.771). The data were analyzed by bivariate and multivariate analyses, using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results revealed a relationship between the following variables and nurses’ safety attitudes: age (p = 0.001), work experience (p = 0.001), job satisfaction (p = 0.001), gender (p = 0.025), clinical nurses’ career path (p = 0.001), patient safety training (p = 0.032), workload (p = 0.001), work stress (p = 0.009), head nurse’s management function (p = 0.001), and working conditions (p = 0.001). Workload was the most influential factor affecting nurses’ safety attitudes (original sample = -0.776). To improve nurses’ safety attitudes, hospitals need to pay attention to nurses’ job satisfaction, workload, work stress, and working conditions and optimize the head nurse’s management function to improve nurses’ safety attitudes