This is a study on the knowledge of patient safety and safety management activities perceived by operating room nurses. The study was conducted to recognize the importance of patient safety by operating room nurses and to contribute to the safety of patients undergoing surgery.
Data were collected from June 1, 2020 to September 30, 2020, and the subjects of the study were chosen by distributing a questionnaire after obtaining consent from nurses working in the operating room using social networking services and operating room nurses in Seoul and Gyeonggi areas. The questionnaire was produced on a Likert 5-point scale, a total of 150 questionnaires were distributed, and 146 copies of the final collected questionnaire were used for the study.
The difference in the degree of patient safety knowledge and safety management activity perceived by the operating room nurses according to the general characteristics of the operating room nurses was analyzed by the t-test and ANOVA test, and the Duncan test was used as a post-mortem test.
The relationship between patient safety knowledge recognized by operating room nurses and safety management activities was analyzed by Pearson's correlation coefficients.
As a result of the study, the average patient safety knowledge was 4.20 (±0.55) points, and the average degree of patient safety management activity was 4.37 (±0.47) points. It was found that there was a significant correlation (r=.516, p=.05) between patient safety knowledge perceived by operating room nurses and patient safety management activities.
Despite being aware of patient safety knowledge, many actual patient safety accidents still occur. Considering that patient safety management activities are also high for those with the highest frequency of patient safety accidents, it is believed that repeated patient safety knowledge education and activities are necessary because the safety accident rate is high notwithstanding the high knowledge and activity.
Moreover, nurses with three to six years of operating room experience have a high level of patient safety knowledge, while patient safety activities are not high. This implies that in addition to the education of new nurses, research should be conducted to set up programs that support and manage continuous and systematic patient safety activities for all operating room nurses regardless of their experience in the field. Furthermore, programs that can measure and improve patient safety knowledge and patient safety activities of operating room nurses should be developed to promote healthier patient safety culture.