Nurses/midwives safety attitudes and their relationship to individual factors (personality characteristics, length and clinical setting of experience): A quantitative study

Background: Ensuring safe and effective delivery of patient care is currently under the spotlight worldwide. As the nursing and midwifery group holds the greatest proportion of global healthcare workforce, the need to minimise human error and promote patient safety is more demanding than ever. Existing literature is focusing on personality traits as a factor related to safety-related behaviours. Relevant findings could assist to the creation of processes/frameworks in education/training to minimise human error. Objective: In this quantitative study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between safety attitudes and individual factors, specifically personality traits (extraversion; agreeableness; conscientiousness; neuroticism; openness), among nurses and midwives. Design: We used a cross-sectional survey methodology. Setting/participants: Nursing and midwifery professionals and university student participants (n = 380). Results: We found that certain demographics (length of work experience and work settings) and personality traits (conscientiousness) were significantly associated with safety attitudes among nurses/midwives. Similarly, for student nurses/midwives, demographics (attended undergraduate program) and personality traits (agreeableness, openness, and neuroticism) were found to be linked to their reported safety attitudes. Conclusion: Future safety educational/training programs in nursing and midwifery could be developed/amended to provide customized safety education/training to customized for individual personality traits’ needs. This proposed application could open new dimensions in safety within healthcare and especially nursing/midwifery.