Nurses’ Adherence to Surgical Safety Guidelines for Patients Undergoing Abdominal Surgery

Abstract

Background: Patient's safety events at the operating room can be completely avoidable by adhering to surgical safety practices that aims to improve adherence to evidence-based safety practices, communication and team work during critical time points as during surgical procedure, before induction of anesthesia, before incision and before the patient leaves the room. Objective: This study aimed to assess nurses' adherence to surgical safety guidelines for patients undergoing abdominal surgery. Subjects and methods: Design: A descriptive exploratory research design was used to achieve the aim of this study. Setting: This study was conducted at the Operating Departments affiliated to Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Study subjects: A convenient sample of all available nurses (75) from the previously mentioned departments was included in the study. Tools of data collection: Structured interview questionnaire included two parts: demographic characteristics of the studied nurses and surgical safety guidelines checklist. Result: This study presented that less than half of the studied scrub nurses and only minority of the circulating nurses and anesthesia nurses had competent practices at the operating room respectively. Conclusion: The study concluded there were statistically significant relations between competent practices of scrub nurses and their attendance of training courses related to surgical safety and between competent practices of circulating nurses, their age and years of experience, while, there were no statistically significant relations between competent practices of anesthesia nurses, their gender and attendance of training course. Recommendation: Ongoing staff development programs and continuing education are important for improving staff performance and maintaining patients' safety.