The Effectiveness of Patient Safety Empowerment Program with the Technique of Failure Mode and Effects Analysis and Its Impact on the Safety Culture of Nurses in Critical Care Units

Care in the intensive care unit (ICU) is always associated with errors for many reasons, and one of the methods to empower nurses is applying the error analyzing tools and assessing their impacts so that nurses would be familiarized with and prevents error modes before their occurrence. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of patient safety empowerment program with the technique of failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) and its impact on safety culture in ICU nurses.

This clinical trial was performed on 72 nurses in Ayatollah Kashani and Hajar hospital in Shahrekord, Iran, during 2018-2019. The patient safety empowerment program with the FMEA technique was designed and implemented in the form of six one-and-a-half sessions. Data were collected using the demographic characteristics and safety culture questionnaires. In addition, data analysis was performed in SPSS version 20 using descriptive and analytical tests.

In this study, there was a significant increasing trend in the safety culture of nurses in the test group, which was indicative of a difference between the two groups in terms of safety culture (P<0.001). Moreover, there was a significant difference in the two groups before and after the safety culture follow-up (P<0.001).

According to the results of the study, the patient safety empowerment test had a positive effect on the safety culture. Therefore, it is recommended that the FMEA technique be used to improve patient safety and the safety culture of nurses