Table 2 Factors influencing patient safety, as perceived by the nurses
Category | Description of the category | Barriers (B) and facilitators (F) |
|---|---|---|
Patient factors | Patient factors relate to patients’ influence on patient safety as perceived by the nurses | Patient interaction (B + F) |
Patient engagement (F) | ||
Individual staff factors | Individual staff factors refer to various personal characteristics of the nurses and other health care providers that the nurses perceived to influence patient safety | Interest and knowledge (F) |
Skills and abilities (B + F) | ||
Feelings (B) | ||
Fallibility (B) | ||
Team factors | Team factors refer to various aspects of the interaction between nurses and other health care providers that the nurses perceived to influence patient safety | Collaboration in multiprofessional teams (B + F) |
Communication with colleagues (B + F) | ||
Task and technology factors | Task and technology factors concern workplace technologies and processes involved in storing and sharing of data, information and knowledge that the nurses perceived to influence patient safety | Collecting, storing and sharing patient safety-related data and information (B + F) |
Medical records (B + F) | ||
Incident reporting (B + F) | ||
Computerized technology (B + F) | ||
Written protocols (F) | ||
Work environment factors | Work environment factors relate to workplace conditions that the nurses perceived to influence patient safety | Structures and forums for learning from errors (B + F) |
Work schedule (B) | ||
Staffing levels and competence mix (B + F) | ||
Physical environment (B) | ||
Organizational and management factors | Organizational and management factors concern conditions of the health care organization (beyond the specific workplace in which the nurses work) that the nurses perceived to influence patient safety | Leadership (B + F) |
Financial resources (B) | ||
Institutional context factors | Institutional context factors refer to conditions of the outer context of the health care organization that the nurses perceived to influence patient safety | Use of knowledge from external sources (B + F) |
Communication with people external to the workplace (B) | ||
Societal interest in patient safety (F) |