Determining Nurses’ Perception of Patient Safety Culture

Objective: this study was carried out as descriptive to determine nurses’ perception of patient safety culture. method: the study was performed on 475 nurses employed in two training and research hospitals and two private hospitals in istanbul. “information form” and “hospital survey of patient safety culture” were used in the study. frequency, percentage, mean, student t test, one way anova analysis, tukey hsd and qui- square tests were used for data analysis. results: accordingly, nurses’ overall perception of patient safety culture was determined as 49.81±22.34 (medium level). this rate was 40.42±18.43 in training and research hospitals and 62.52±20.96 in private hospitals, and the difference was statistically highly significant (p<0.001). it was determined that 72% of nurses in training and research hospitals and 73.5% of nurses in private hospitals did not report failed incidents at all. less than half of nurses 48.7% in training and research hospitals assessed patient safety degree of their units as acceptable, while slightly more than half of nurses 51% in private hospitals assessed the same property as quite good. conclusion: nurses should take responsibility in patient safety and improvement of patient safety culture should be the main priority of the institutions.