Identifying Predictors of Patient Safety Competency Based on Teamwork and Psychological Safety among emergency nurses.

AimsTo identify factors that predict the patient safety competency of emergency nurses.BackgroundThe role of emergency nurses is to provide high-quality health care to patients and ensure their safety. The patient safety competency includes the absence of unnecessary or potential harm when providing health care to patients. In providing health care, effective teamwork can affect patient safety and outcome. Psychological safety is essential to effective teamwork. Psychological safety allows health care workers to accept the interpersonal risks needed to perform effective teamwork and maintain patient safety.MethodsThis descriptive correlation study included 254 emergency department nurses from five educational hospitals using convenience sampling. Patient Safety in Nursing Education Questionnaire was used to measure the patient safety competency, the teamwork questionnaire to examine the teamwork, and Edmondson psychological safety questionnaire was used to measure psychological safety. Descriptive statistics, t-Test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson's correlation, and Stepwise multiple regression were performed using SPSS 14.0.ResultsThe findings of the present study showed that the level of patient safety competency among emergency nurses is at a desirable level. Of the 18 independent variables evaluated in the multiple regression analysis, seven had a significant effect on the patient safety competency of emergency nurses (R2: 0.39, p < .001).ConclusionsThe patient safety competency of emergency department nurses was primarily related to the structure and leadership of the team and secondary to psychological safety and experience in patient safety activity. The results demonstrated that policymakers and hospital managers should improve and enhance team structure and leadership via supervision and cooperation with the nursing staff. The development of training programs in the field of patient safety activities, improvement, and increase of psychological safety at the levels of the nursing units is essential to increase patient safety competencies in the emergency nursing program.