Patient Participation in Patient Safety-An Exploration of Promoting Factors

Aims: To study how internal medicine patients experienced patient safety during their recent periods of care and to identify explanatory factors for patient participation.

Background: Patient participation is recognized as one of the main factors promoting quality and safety and the identification of effective interventions that encourage safe care.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey of patients (n = 462) in the internal medicine wards (n = 18) of all five Finnish university hospitals. Data were analysed using principal component analysis and multiple linear regression.

Results: Most patients (78%) assessed the level of patient safety on their ward as "very good" or "excellent," 20% of patients assessed it as acceptable or worse. The following were considered to be the most important factors explaining higher patient participation: informing patients about the research and encouraging them to participate (β = 0.378, p < 0.001), providing necessary information promptly and comprehensibly (β = 0.393, p < 0.001), and enhancing patients' ability to identify patient safety incident(s) (β = 0.186, p < 0.001).

Conclusions: Healthcare workers must improve by encouraging patient participation and providing relevant information to patients.

Implication For Nursing Management: Nursing leaders must be competent to support, lead, and allocate resources for the creation of an environment where patient participation can occur and is valued by health care workers.