1.The Relationship of Nurses’ Professional Commitment with Patient Safety and Patient Satisfaction at a Malaysian University Teaching Hospital
Sanaa Al-shlool ; Hasni Embong ; Rami Otoum ; David Joseph Pereira ; Zaid Al-Hamdan ; Weng Kin Wong ; Jayah K. Pubalan
Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences 2022;18(No.2):50-57
Introduction: Professional commitment encompasses affirmation of profession goals and values and a strong sense
of profession loyalty. Nurses’ professional commitment is important as nurses represent the majority of healthcare
professionals. Nurses play an essential role in maintaining patient safety and offering high care quality. This study
aimed to examine the relationship of nurses’ professional commitment with patient safety and patient satisfaction
about care quality in the Malaysian healthcare context. Methods: A cross-sectional design with a questionnaire
was adopted using pairs of nurse and in-patient from a Malaysian university teaching hospital. The questionnaire
measuring nurses’ professional commitment from Meyer and Allen’s organizational commitment scale was used.
The nurses’ questionnaire also incorporated the Teng, Chang and Hsu’s patient safety scale of six adverse actions
to assess the patient safety level among nurses. The questionnaire for patients utilized the Service Quality Scale by
Teng, Shyu and Chang to measure the patient satisfaction about care quality. Using the online survey channel to
administer the questionnaires, 170 questionnaires were filled by nurses and this was matched by 170 questionnaires
being completed by patients. Pearson correlation coefficient was used for the analysis. Results: The results show that
nurses’ professional commitment has a positive relationship with the patient satisfaction (r= 0.225, p= 0.003) while
no significant relationship was found between nurses’ professional commitment and patient safety. Conclusion:
Efforts could be made to incorporate elements of professional commitment into nursing quality training programs.
Managing patient safety and service quality across ward specialties may require tailoring of service provision aspects
in line with different levels of patient care needs and complexity.