Patient Safety in Inpatient Wards: Sample of a University Hospital

The aim of this study was to evaluate the patient safety in inpatient wards of an educational hospital affiliated with Tehran University of Medical Sciences from the viewpoint of nursing staff using the six sigma methodology. This was a cross-sectional descriptive analytical study, carried out in an educational hospital affiliated with Tehran University of Medical Sciences in 2010. The study was performed using a researcher-devised questionnaire. From among the hospital nurses, 42 nurses (three from each ward) were randomly selected and were asked to fill out the questionnaire. We used the opinions of faculty members and experts of the field to determine content validity of the questionnaire. Furthermore, to confirm the questionnaire reliability, the value of Cronbach’s alpha was calculated and it was determined as 0.81. Data analysis was performed using SPSS and Microsoft Excel software. According to the results, the levels of physical environment and installation safety and safety training were medium (59.8, 60.2 and 64.6%, respectively), while safety of patients’ beds, health and management of incidents were at desirable level (70.6, 76.6 and 77.2%, respectively). In general, safety of inpatient wards of the hospital was at the medium level. From the view point of nursing staff, the wards Urology 2 and Orthopedic Surgery 1 had the best and worst status with the mean score of 91.23 and 58.52, respectively.