Abstract
Developing a patient safety culture was one of the recommendations made by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to assist hospitals in improving patient safety. Nurses are the key to safety improvements in hospitals. It is necessary to know their awareness and perception regarding institutional safety climate. The aim of this study is to explore perceptions of patient safety among nursing staff in a tertiary hospital in Central Saudi Arabia in different discipline units. The current study was conducted at Prince Sultan Military Medical City (PSMMC), a tertiary center in Riyadh, Central Saudi Arabia. In November 2014, five hundred nurses were randomly selected to participate in this study. A survey questionnaire with Likert scale was adopted covering characteristics of participants together with their views on patient safety issues. Two hundred and twenty-four participants filled the questionnaire with a response rate of 44.8%. The overall perception of patient safety among participants was (57.9%). The majority (74.1%) thought that the existing system is good at preventing errors and only one third indicated that they have patient safety problems. Most of the participants were happy with the existing patient safety culture including organizational learning/continuous improvement (95.5%), and errors feedback and communication (76.64%). In conclusion, this study showed that perception of patient safety was sub-optimal among nurses and there are several areas for improvement regarding safety culture.

Key words: Adverse events; Patient safety; Perception; Work environment