The Relationship Between Perceived Quality of Care and the Patient Safety Culture of Turkish Nurses

Evaluating nurses' perceived quality of care and safety culture is an essential part of the nursing practice and critical to improving the quality of nursing care.

This study aimed to examine the relationship between perceived quality of care and Turkish nurses' patient safety culture.

This was a descriptive cross-sectional study. The data were collected from a foundation university hospital in Istanbul. The sample consisted of 116 nurses, and data were collected using the Caring Behaviors Inventory-24 and Patient Safety Culture Scale. The nurses were asked to complete the questionnaires.

The mean age of participating nurses was 25.95 ( SD = 6.72) years. The mean duration of professional experience of the participants was 6.37 ( SD = 6.05) years. Most (72.4%) of the participants were women who had graduated from vocational high schools (52.6%) and were working in the neonatal intensive care unit (37.9%). The highest mean subdimension score on the Caring Behaviors Inventory-24 was 5.78 ( SD = 0.43) for the knowledge and skills subdimension. The highest mean subdimension score on the Patient Safety Culture Scale was 3.55 ( SD = 0.48) for the unexpected event and error reporting subdimension. Statistically significant correlations were found between Caring Behaviors Inventory-24 and Patient Safety Culture Scale scores ( r = .553, p < .01), with the lowest correlation found between the employee behavior and knowledge and skills dimensions ( r = .305, p = .001). The highest statistically significant correlation coefficients that were found were between the Patient Safety Culture Scale total scores and the connectedness dimension of the Caring Behaviors Inventory-24 ( r = .58, p < .001).

Nurses perceive patient care positively and have a positive perception of safety culture. Evaluating the perceived quality of care and patient safety culture perceptions will help prevent adverse events related to patient care and improve the quality of care.