Abstract
BACKGROUND: The students must engage early in safety principles within their academic programs. This study aims to determine the differences in knowledge, attitude, and perception from interns' demographic information and correlates between knowledge, attitudes, and perception on patient safety.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: A quantitative comparative-correlational study was conducted at the hospital hemodialysis units in the Hail Region, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. There were 118 nurse interns who participated in the study resulting from simple random sampling. The survey questionnaire was used for data collection from May to July 2019.
RESULTS: Nurse interns have a good knowledge ((x) over bar = 2.94), attitudes ((x) over bar = 3.51), and perception ((x) over bar = 3.26). The t-test found significant differences between type of program to knowledge (P < 0.01) and attitudes (P < 0.02). However, no significant differences found between knowledge to sex (P > 0.18.) and patient safety (P > 0.73); perception to sex (P > 0.60), type of program (P > 0.45), and patient safety training (P > 0.68); and attitudes to sex (P > 0.14) and patient safety training (P > 0.51). There is a significant moderate positive correlation between the knowledge, attitude, and perception, and attitude to perception.
CONCLUSION: The good results of knowledge, attitudes, and perception of the nurse interns suggest a continuous improvement of the nursing intern program for patient safety. Further, the knowledge translation to attitude and perception is a good indication that nurse interns can acclimatize the patient safety in their future actual practice. Study findings contribute to the improvement of the outcomes of the educational process for the nursing internship program.