Nurses perspectives and experiences for involving patients to participate in patient safety activities

23^rd World Nursing and Healthcare Conference

July 10-12, 2017 Berlin, Germany

Chang-Chiao Hung, RN and Hwey-Fang Liang, RN

Associate Progessor, Department of Nursing, Chung Gung University of Technology and Science, Chiayi Campus, Taiwan

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Nurs Care

Abstract :

Background: Patient participation in patient safety activity (PSA) has been identified as an effective strategy to improve patient safety in hospitals and the patient�s role in promoting safe care has already been affirmed internationally. However, little is known about professionals� willingness and involvement of patients in their own healthcare activities. Purpose: The aims were to explore nurses� perspectives and experiences of involving patients to participate in patient safety activities (PSA). Research design: This was a qualitative design. We interviewed nurses to understand their perspectives and experiences of participation in PSA. This study was conducted at a regional teaching hospital of 1,379 patient beds, located in the northern part of southern Taiwan. Because our study subjects were nurses who work in acute care units, the outpatient units, delivery rooms, operating rooms, intensive care units, and emergency departments were excluded from the study. The final number of eligible units is 12 and approximate number of registered nurses is 250. Nurses who have worked 1 year or more in these 18 units were our potential participants. Purposeful sampling will be used to identify and recruit participants from these 12 units. To aim for a focus group size of 4�8, as recommended by Kitzinger (2006), we try to recruit at least 2�3 nurses from each eligible unit. Nurses� focus group discussions used a semi-structured interview guide and were conducted at a convenient time and place. Focus-group discussions for nurses took at least 40�50 minutes. A content-analysis approach was applied to the interview texts Result: Twenty-eight nurses participated in the study, and four categorie emerged from the focus group discussions. First, the nurses acknowledged that patients were valuable helpers if they received well training and got enough information in relation to their disease. That the nurses believe that patients have actual participation in their daily physical activities and treatment decision making is the second category. Risk reminder is the third category. Patient participation allows the nurses to rethink nursing care process or activities that avoid the adervse evens. The final category, admitting patients as interrupter, showed that patient participation obstruct nursing care process because of patients� demographic characteristic, such as gender, age, or education. Conclusions: Nurses are paramount for involing paitnes to participate in PSA. To understand nurses� perspective of patient participation allow health organizations to develop strategies to support nurses� roles in patient participation. Eduction and policy design are seesntial to foster nurses� pivotal role in ncouraging patient participation.

Biography :

Chang-Chiao Hung was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. She received her BSN from Emory University, USA, in 1997, MSN from University of South Alabama, USA, in 1999, and her Ph.D. in Nursing from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, in 2011. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Nursing at the Chang Gung University of Science and Technology. Her research interests have been in the areas of patient safety, organizational behavior, and nursing education.