Relationship between Hospital Nurses' Perceived Patient Safety Culture and Their Safety Care Activities

Purpose: This study was performed to measure hospital nurses' perceived patient safety culture and their safety care activities, and to investigate the relationship between these two factors. Method: This study was a cross-sectional survey. The participants were 301 nurses working at 4 general hospitals, and data collection was done from June 22 to June 30, 2009 by self-administrated questionnaires. Results: With a possible score of 5 points, the average score for nurses' perceived patient safety culture was 3.34, and for their safety care activities, 4.25. There were perceived differences in patient safety culture and safety care activities according to age, position, length of work experience and number of patient safety education sessions attended. All sub-factors in patient safety culture had a positive relationship with safety care activities. Factors influencing nurses' safety care activities were number of patient safety education sessions attended, hospital environment, and supervisor/manager. These factors explained 58.2% of the variance. Conclusion: The findings indicate that patient safety education is very important to improve nurses' safety care activity. So nursing supervisors/ managers should develop strategies encourage patient safety education, and make nurses' working environment safer.