[Safety culture of nursing staff. A descriptive study in a Piedmont Hospital]

Assessing safety culture is the first step towards a responsible and wary system to the errors and to the quality of the performance. The aim of the study was to assess nurses' safety culture, in order to identify improvement's priorities. A survey of nursing staff, using a questionnaire was carried out in a Piedmont hospital. Of 1056 health care workers, 707 participated (67%). The staff's perception of patient safety was positive: the results of the domains "Information and communication", "Suggestions and development" and "Safety guarantees" tend to be fair, while "Teamwork" was sufficient. The weakest areas were related to involvement (Items: "We are consulted when choosing equipment and devices to be used", 25.9% agreement, "At the end of the year we discuss together activities carried out and results" 31,8%), and "Work organization (shifts, workload) doesn't cause overload and stress", 25.3% agreement, "When an error occurs we know how to communicate with the patient as we have a guideline to lead us" 35.8% agreement. The study shows that, even if the safety culture is overall positive, there are some critical aspects that lead to distress and uncertainty between nursing staff. Improvement strategies may include: staff training to improve teamwork skills and staff involvement, increasing opportunities for discussion, organizing systematic multi-professional audit, to reflect in a structured way on clinical practice.