Beyond Patient Safety: Exploring the Mechanism of How Organizational Support Influences Nurses' Safety Behavior in Pediatric Intensive Care Units.

Objective: To examine the relationships among safety culture perception, organizational support, and safety behavior in nurses working in the intensive care unit (ICU) of a pediatric hospital, as well as the underlying mechanisms.

Methods: We surveyed 133 ICU nurses using the Nurse Safety Behavior Scale, Nurse Culture Perception Questionnaire, and Organizational Support Questionnaire. Nurses completed questionnaires during designated breaks in their shifts. We analyzed responses using SPSS 22.0, calculated descriptive statistics, ran correlation analyses, and performed mediation analysis with bootstrapping. We set significance at P≤ 0.05.

Results: The mean scores for safety behavior, safety culture perception, and organizational support were 56.26 ± 4.61, 103.92 ± 12.80, and 50.11 ± 11.32, respectively. Safety behavior was positively correlated with both safety culture perception (r = 0.367, P ≤ 0.01) and organizational support (r = 0.360, P ≤ 0.01). Mediation analysis revealed that safety culture perception partially mediated the effect of organizational support on safety behavior, explaining 30.47% of the total effect.

Conclusion: Safety culture perception acts as a mediator between organizational support and safety behavior in pediatric ICU nurses. Hospital administrators can foster a culture of safety, enhance organizational support, and promote safety practices among nurses to better ensure patient safety in pediatric critical care settings. These findings have important implications for developing targeted interventions to improve safety behaviors among pediatric ICU nurses.