Systematic review: Nurses' safety attitudes and their impact on patient outcomes in acute-care hospitals (19 September 2021)

Summary

This systematic review in Nursing Open synthesises the best available evidence on the impact of nurses' safety attitudes on patient outcomes in acute care hospitals. The review included nine studies and found that nurses with positive safety attitudes reported:

• fewer patient falls and medication errors
• fewer pressure injuries and healthcare-associated infections
• fewer mortalities
• fewer physical restraints and vascular access device reactions
• higher patient satisfaction.

The authors also found that effective teamwork led to a reduction in adverse patient outcomes. They conclude that a positive safety culture results in fewer reported adverse patient outcomes, and that nurse managers can improve nurses' safety attitudes by promoting a non-punitive response to error reporting and promoting effective teamwork and good communication.