Patient safety in nursing homes in Sweden: nurses’ views on safety and their role

Abstract

Objective

Knowledge about patient safety in nursing homes is limited. The aim of this study was to describe what patient safety means to nurses working in nursing homes for the elderly and how these nurses address patient safety.

Method

Qualitative study of semi-structured interviews with 15 nurses aged 27–62 years. Qualitative content analysis was applied.

Results

Nurses describe the meaning of patient safety in terms of proper care and treatment, and a sense of security. Based on nurses’ description of patient safety, several factors were identified as prerequisites to achieve safe health care: competence; clear information transfer between health care organizations; continuity of care and appropriate environment. Barriers to patient safety were described as lack of sufficient resources; lack of communication and negative attitudes to incident reporting. To a great extent, nurses’ work for patient safety consists of efforts to compensate for defects and ensure good health care in their daily work, since work with patient safety is not a management priority.

Conclusion

Patient safety needs to be clarified and prioritized in nursing homes, and there is a need to understand nurses’ role among other care givers and the need for shared routines among care givers.