Safety Competency: Exploring the Impact of Environmental and Personal Factors on the Nurse's Ability to Deliver Safe Care

Background: Patient safety is a priority in health care systems. Nurses' safety competence along with environmental and personal factors plays a role in patient safety. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among safety competency, structural empowerment, systems thinking, level of education, and certification. Methods: A cross-sectional exploratory design was used to collect data from nurses (n = 163) practicing in a large Midwestern hospital system. Results: There were significant positive correlations between safety competency and (a) structural empowerment, (b) systems thinking, and (c) certification. Systems thinking explained 12.9% of the variance in the knowledge component of safety competency and 6.8% of the variance in the skill component of safety competency. Certification explained 2.4% of the variance in the skill component of safety competency. Conclusions: Understanding factors that affect safety competency supports the development of effective interventions that may improve safety.