Attitudes of health professionals working in emergency departments on patient safety and effective factors in patient safety

This study was designed as a descriptive study in order to determine the attitudes of health professionals working in emergency departments and patient safety factors. The study area included the 150 health professionals working in the emergency departments of three hospitals in Turkey, and the sample survey was created by the selection of the 143 health professionals who accepted to participate in the research and met the inclusion criteria. The data of the study was collected by face to face interview using questionnaires of "Personal Information Form" and the "Patient Safety Attitude Scale", which were prepared according to the literature in such a way to include demographic information and the working departments of the subjects. Descriptive statistical methods were used to evaluate the collected data. The fitness of the experimental data to the normal distribution was tested using the Shapiro-Wilk test and graphical examinations. When the mean scores of the health workers who were taken from the Patient Safety Attitude Scale and the sub-dimensions of the scale were examined, the mean total score of "Patient Safety Attitude Scale" was found to be 3.34 ± 0.369 (range 2.28-4.43 (3.33)). It was found that the highest sub-dimension was "administrative mentality" with a score of 3.53 ± 0.63 (distribution 1, 57-5 (3.57)) and the lowest sub-dimension was "stress identification" with a score of with a score of 3.02 ± 0.84 (distribution 1-5 (3)) when the averages of the sub-dimensions were evaluated. While the service periods are considered; the score for the "working conditions" sub-dimension of the healthcare workers with a service period of 10 years or more was significantly higher than the ones whose service period was between 4 and 6 years (p = 0.012; p <0.05). The scores for "job satisfaction" sub-dimension of the health workers who had communication problems with their patients or their relatives were found to be significantly lower than those who did not have communication problems (p = 0,024; p <0,05). As a result, while evaluating the health professionals' attitudes towards patient safety in hospitals, it is necessary to consider working conditions, the adequacy of the number of health professionals and patient safety factor. Besides, it is strongly recommended that sustainable training programs should be arranged for all employees regarding. In order to establish patient safety, creation of awareness on these issues are utmost important. Keywords: Nursing, Health Workers, Emergency Service, Patient Safety