Purpose This study aimed to explore nurses’ experiences with hospitalized children’s fall accidents. The findings are intended to provide foundational data for developing strategies to strengthen patient safety for children.
Methods Participants were purposively sampled. The sample consisted of eight nurses working in the pediatric departments of hospitals located in Daegu and Seoul in South Korea. All participants had experienced at least one fall accident involving a hospitalized child within the past year. Data were collected through in-depth interviews conducted between February 1 and April 30, 2025. The collected data were analyzed using Colaizzi’s phenomenological analysis method.
Results The data analysis revealed four themes and 12 subthemes, which were derived from 111 significant statements and reflect pediatric ward nurses’ experiences with inpatient fall incidents. The four themes were: “encountering fall risks beyond nurses’ control,” “ineffective fall education and formalized safety practices,” “limitations of assessment tools and the growth of reflective practice,” and “moving toward comprehensive fall prevention and management strategies.”
Conclusion Nurses recognized that the risk of pediatric falls was often beyond their control, and that fall prevention education did not always translate into practice. Reflective analysis of fall incidents, age- and patient-specific fall nursing interventions, and the establishment of an integrated support system are needed for effective fall prevention and management. These findings are expected to provide basic data to guide nursing care that prevents fall accidents and improves children’s patient safety.
Purpose This study aimed to identify the effects of pediatric nurses’ perception of patient safety culture and their partnership with patients’ parents on pediatric patient safety nursing activities.
Methods This descriptive study was conducted over a two-month period, from October to November 2022, utilizing self-reported questionnaires. The study included 165 nurses, each having at least 6 months of working experience in wards where children were admitted. These nurses were selected from 13 pediatric specialty hospitals, general hospitals, and university hospitals across seven regions. The data analysis was performed using the SPSS/WIN 26.0 program (IBM Corp.) for descriptive statistics, t-test, One-way ANOVA, Scheffé test, Pearson correlation coefficients, and multiple regression analysis.
Results The average scores for awareness of patient safety culture, partnership with patients’ parents, and pediatric patient safety nursing activities were 3.37±0.41, 3.94±0.41, and 4.50±0.38, out of 5 points respectively. The factors influencing pediatric patient safety nursing activities were identified as a partnership with patients’ parents (β=.41, p<.001). Among hospital-related characteristics, safety management committee (β=.16, p=.029) and safety management regulations (β=.17, p=.016) were also analyzed as factors influencing patient safety nursing activities. These factors accounted for 29.2% of the explanatory power for pediatric patient safety nursing activities.
Conclusion Based on the above study results, we found that to promote safe nursing activities for pediatric patients, developing and implementing training programs that enhance partnerships with patient’s parents was imperative, and establishing work regulations and a safety management committee to systematically manage safety management tasks was deemed important.
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Nurses’ experiences of children’s fall accidents in South Korea: a phenomenological study Hye Jin Kim, Hyun Young Koo Child Health Nursing Research.2026; 32(1): 39. CrossRef
Purpose Nursing students are susceptible to medication safety incidents in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) related to a lack of communication experience. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the impact of a NICU medication safety simulation (NMSS) focusing on communication clarity, patient hand-off confidence, and patient safety competency in senior-year nursing students.
Methods The study utilized a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design. In total, 60 nursing students were assigned to two groups. The experimental group participated in the NMSS, which included three medication error scenarios. Pairs of students completed the scenarios together in 10 to 20 minutes. Data were analyzed using the chi-squared test, independent t test, and ANCOVA.
Results The experimental group showed significant improvements in communication clarity (p=.015), and patient safety competency (p<.001) compared to the control group. Using the pretest values as covariates, patient hand-off confidence scores significantly increased (p=.027).
Conclusion Implementing the NMSS focusing on communication in the pediatric nursing curriculum helped students to communicate clearly and concisely about medication errors, and its use is recommended to promote patient safety competency in the NICU.
Citations
Citations to this article as recorded by
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, Hyun Young Koo
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