A Longitudinal Study to Analyze the Perceptions of Departed and On-the-Job Nurses in Patient Safety Culture

Abstract

The aims of this study are to first compare whether on-the-job and departed nurses have different perceptions on the patient safety culture based on the Chinese version of the safety attitudes questionnaire and then identify critical dimension(s) that affect the overall satisfaction of the patient safety culture from the viewpoints of these two types of nurses. No studies have been found to evaluate the perception differences of the patient safety culture from viewpoints of both departed and on-the-job nurses. This study uses the internal datasets by a retrospective approach to compare if on-the-job and departed nurses have different perceptions in the patient safety culture from a regional teaching hospital in Taiwan from 2016 to 2018. For departed nurses, perceptions of management and teamwork climate are critical dimensions to influence the overall satisfaction followed by working conditions. For on-the-job nurses, working conditions are the only variable appeared from 2016 and 2018 having the largest impact on the overall satisfaction of the patient safety culture. Safety climate and perceptions of management are considered as the second important dimensions to affect the overall satisfaction. Perceptions of management and teamwork climate are the two critical dimensions to affect the overall satisfaction of the patient safety culture for departed nurses, whereas working conditions are the most essential dimension to influence the overall satisfaction followed by perceptions of management and safety climate for on-the-job nurses. Improving working conditions and safety climate might be a means of reducing the nurse turnover in practice based on the findings.