Nurses’ systems thinking competency, medical error reporting, and the occurrence of adverse events: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: Healthcare professionals’ systems thinking is emphasized for patient safety.

Aims: To report nurses’ systems thinking competency, and its relationship with medical error reporting and the occurrence of adverse events.

Design: A cross-sectional survey using a previously validated Systems Thinking Scale (STS), was conducted.

Methods: Nurses from two teaching hospitals were invited to participate in the survey. There were 407 (60.3%) completed surveys.

Results: The mean STS score was 54.5 (SD 7.3) out of 80. Nurses with higher STS scores were more likely to report medical errors (odds ratio (OR) = 1.05; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.02–1.08) and were less likely to be involved in the occurrence of adverse events (OR = 0.96; 95% CI = 0.93–0.98).

Conclusions: Nurses showed moderate systems thinking competency. Systems thinking was a significant factor associated with patient safety.

Impact Statement: The findings of this study highlight the importance of enhancing nurses’ systems thinking capacity to promote patient safety.

Keywords:

• patient safety
• systems thinking
• clinical competence
• medical errors
• incident reporting
• nurses

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology [grant no. 2012R1A1A2008214].