Perception of safety climate among Indonesian nurses: A cross-sectional survey

The measurement of nurse perception on safety, and the factors associated to safety climate, direct the development of effective strategies in reducing adverse events, and patient safety improvement.

This research was quantified, using the teamwork and safety climate domains of an Indonesian translated version of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ-INA). The teamwork and safety climate domain scores were calculated, using the published SAQ-INA scoring algorithm. The univariate and multivariate median regression models were performed to examine the association between potential predictors and safety climate.

The results showed that 279 nurses responded to the survey (82% response rate). While most of them had a positive attitude towards teamwork (n= 170, 61%), fewer possessed the same mentality towards safety climate (n=109, 39%).  The lowest level of teamwork was perceived by nurses working in the emergency department (median 71, interquartile range 12.5), and safety climate (median 64, interquartile range 14.2). Furthermore, those that worked in the private hospitals, also reported lower levels of safety climate, compared to nurses in the public health centres (median difference=-3.571, p=0.009).

Ward and hospital type were associated with the level of safety climate, perceived by nurses. Understanding the key areas, the intervention is best directed to target hospital wards with poor safety climate, in a bid to reduce adverse events, and improve patient safety.