Abstract: Patient safety is considered as important issue and fundamental to improve quality of care. Its improvement is considered a target goal for many current healthcare systems. However, knowledge of how improve patient safety is still growing and in recent years patient safety incidents have increased in Saudi Arabia. Aim of the Study: To assess nurses' knowledge and practices related to patient safety in Jeddah Eye Hospital (JEH). Design: A descriptive study. Setting: Male and Female wards in JEH. Study sample: The nurses who gave direct care to ophthalmic inpatients. Tools: Data collected through two methods which were developed by the researcher: 1) A structured questionnaire, 2) An observational checklist. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 20. Result: More than half (56.7 %) of the sample were aged 28-33 years, 96.7% were female, 60 % of the nurses had an experience in ophthalmic hospital between 1 to 5 years. Almost all of the nurses (93.3 %) had knowledge at an average level, but only 6.6% of the sample observed had a satisfactory level of practice. Conclusion & Recommendations: Nurses have adequate knowledge, but did not always apply their knowledge to practice regarding patient safety issues. There was no statistically significant relation between knowledge and practice among nurses in JEH (p-value = 0.818). Patient safety can be enhanced by promoting a safety culture in the organization, where nurses are free of undesirable feelings as well as the importance of available resources that are necessary for ensuring safety for patients. Most importantly, continuous staff education should be emphasized, developing a patient safety program and implementation and evaluation of such programs in practice.
Keywords: Nurses’ knowledge, Patient safety practices, Ophthalmic patients.
Title: Assessment of Nurses' Knowledge and Practices Related to Patient Safety in Jeddah Eye Hospital
Author: Kawther H. Alesawi, Hasnah Banjar, Amani Safwat
International Journal of Healthcare Sciences
ISSN 2348-5728 (Online)
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