The Perception of Safety in Nursing Practice

The theme of this thesis is "The Perception of Safety in Nursing Practice". While most of literaure of focused on the psyhisal aspects of safety, this thesis is focused on the psychological ones. This thesis has two goals altogether. Its firt goal is to find out the possibilities of securing patient´s and nurse´s feeling of safety from nurse´s outlook. The second goal is to find out nurses´s perception of their own feeling of safety while at work. The research questions are 1) How do patients perceive their safety during nursing care? 2) What does patient´s safety mean to nurses? 3) How does the personnel perceive their own safety during nursing care? The theoretical part describes safety, needs, communicaton, trust and the possibilities of securing psyhical and psychological safety of patients and nurses alike. The practical part consists of nurses and patient interviews about safety and factors, that may influence it. The data were collected by semi-structured interviews with nurses and patients located in hospitals of south and west Bohemia. The research involved 20 respondents, 10 nurses and 10 patients, of deliberate choosing and by the form of snowball sampling. The data were collected since May through to July 2019 and the collection was concluded at the moment of theoretical saturation. The interviews covered themes like safety, communication, trust, quality of care, EBN, teamwork and what do nurses find lacking while ensuring safety of their patients and their own. The results show that each person perceives their safety differently and it is necessary to fit the care to patient´s specific needs. The respondents agree on the importance of proper communication, of trust between patient and nurse and between personnel alike, and of informedness. Most of the nurses also responded that they miss more time to spend with their patients to build mutual trust and to develop their feeling of safety. Usually the blame lies on their ward being understaffed. This thesis mapped out the perception of safety of nurses and patients including some of the shortcomings involved in the current nursing practice. It can serve as a reference material for studying