Professional commitment, patient safety, and patient-perceived care quality.

PURPOSE: To examine how professional commitment influences patient safety and patient-perceived care quality.
DESIGN: Investigators for this study used a cross-sectional design with questionnaires. A total of 348 pairs of nurses and inpatients were contacted at two medical centers in Taiwan during the period from August 2007 to January 2008, yielding 284 pairs of completed questionnaires.
METHODS: Frequencies of six adverse patient events were used to measure patient safety; and the Service Quality Scale was used to measure patient-perceived care quality. Four items of the Professional Commitment Questionnaire were used to measure professional commitment. Regressions were used for the analyses.
FINDINGS: Professional commitment positively influenced overall patient safety (ss=.19, p=.00) and overall patient-perceived care quality (ss=.13, p=.03). Furthermore, professional commitment positively influenced all patient safety indicators (ss>or=.12, p<or=.04), except frequency of nosocomial infections, the coefficient of which reached borderline significance (ss=.11, p=.07). Professional commitment also positively influenced care quality in terms of responsiveness (ss=.16, p=.01) and empathy (ss=.14, p=.03).
CONCLUSIONS: Professional commitment may enhance patient safety and patient-perceived care quality. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: This study indicates that nurse professional commitment can enhance patient safety and patient-perceived care quality.