Investigation of the Safety Climate of Nurses' Working in Medical-Surgical Units of Teaching Hospitals

Safety climate is one of the factors related to nurses' satisfaction, and therefore, quality of patient care. This study aimed to determine the safety climate in medical-surgical units of teaching hospitals in Zanjan, Iran.

This cross-sectional study was conducted on 247 nurses working in five teaching hospitals in Zanjan, Iran, in 2021.  Participants were selected by the Poisson sampling method. The required data were collected using a demographic characteristics form and the standard nurses' safety climate questionnaire by Sarsangi et al. (2015). This scale measures the nurses' perceptions regarding the dimensions of nursing education, communication with physicians, communication with nurses, supervisors' attitudes, reporting errors, and burnout. The obtained data were analyzed in SPSS software (version 18) through descriptive statistics, independent t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Pearson correlation coefficient.

The total mean score of safety climate was 3.12±0.53 out of 5. The highest mean safety climate scores were related to the ‘communication between nurses’ (3.61±0.83), followed by ‘reporting errors ‘(3.53±0.69). The lowest mean score was related to ‘burnout‘(2.32±0.90) out of 5. The total score of safety climate was statistically different and significant based on the organizational position and city in which the participants were working. However, the total mean score of safety climate showed no significant relationship with gender, marital status, education, employment, ward, age, and work experience.

This study showed the moderate level of safety climate of nurses working in Zanjan, Iran. Cumulative burnout was one of the components of the safety climate that obtained the lowest mean score, compared to other dimensions. In other words, burnout was highly prevalent among the nurses in this study. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the safety climate of nurses, especially in the cumulative burnout dimension.