Defense of a Ph.D. Dissertation by Researcher Loai Muawyah Zaben in the Nursing Program

This research examined the extent to which work stress affects patient safety culture in Palestinian hospitals, with the aim of improving health care outcomes and supporting health care workers. The study used a mixed and sequential interpretive approach, where the researcher collected data through self-filled questionnaires.

The study results showed that the general perception of male and female nurses about patient safety culture was 47%. The most positively perceived areas were “Teamwork”, “Organizational Learning - Continuous Improvement” and “Communicating Mistakes”. Furthermore, the most common sources of work stress perceived by male and female nurses were “workload” and dealing with “death and dying.” Statistical tests revealed six factors significantly associated with perceptions of work stress. Among these factors are income, hospital type, job stress improvement activities, patient safety ratings in work areas, and weekly night shifts emerged as predictors of perceptions of patient safety culture.

The study recommends investing in training programs that provide male and female nurses with the necessary skills and the required knowledge to patient safety, holding workshops and meetings to increase awareness of patient safety and reporting errors, regularly evaluating patient safety within hospitals and identifying areas for improvement, in addition to establish a robust system for reporting, evaluating, and providing feedback on errors as well as implementing the “Fair Culture” strategy and including patient safety in nursing education curricula at universities.

The dissertation was supervised by Dr. Jamal Al Qaddumi and co-supervised by Dr. Sajid Gawadra. The committee of examiners included Dr. Mohammad Al Bashtawi, Dr. Abdullah Al-Khawaldeh and Dr. Basma Salameh.