Background Improvement of patient safety in Kenya depends on knowledgeable nurses who are equipped with the clinical safety and sociocultural competences of patient safety. Objectives This study assessed the theoretical and practical learning of these competences as perceived by nursing students. Method A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 178 preregistration Bachelor of Nursing students from two Kenyan universities using the Health Professional Education in Patient Safety Survey. This tool assessed the students’ confidence in learning about clinical safety and the sociocultural aspects of patient safety in the classroom and clinical settings. Descriptive statistics summarised the sample and survey responses, while paired t -tests and ANOVA were used to compare responses across learning settings and year of study. Results The students reported higher confidence about learning on the clinical aspects than on the sociocultural issues of patient safety with the lowest mean scores recorded in ‘Understanding human and environmental factors’ and ‘Recognising, responding and disclosing adverse events’. They reported significantly higher confidence scores in the classroom setting than the clinical setting with no significant difference in reported confidence across the years of study. They were less confident in speaking up about patient safety issues in the clinical areas with 52.2% feeling that reporting a patient safety problem will result in negative repercussions. Conclusion Nursing programmes in Kenya need to reinforce the sociocultural aspects of patient safety in the curriculum. The patient safety culture in the clinical placements sites needs to be conducive to enable, and not hinder, the acquisition of these competences.

Background: Patient safety has recently been declared a global health priority. Achievement and sustenance of a culture of patient safety require a regular and timely assessment of the organization. The Safety Attitudes Questionnaire is a patient safety culture assessment tool whose usefulness has been established in countries, but a few studies have been published from Africa, more so, in Kenyan settings. Objective: To evaluate the reliability of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire in assessing the patient safety culture in a Kenyan setting and to assess healthcare workers' perceptions of patient safety culture. Methods: A descriptive quantitative approach was utilized whereby the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire was administered to 241 healthcare workers in two public hospitals. The Cronbach’s α was calculated to determine the internal consistency of the SAQ. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze and describe the data on patient safety culture. Results: The total scale Cronbach’s alpha of the SAQ was 0.86, while that of the six dimensions was 0.65 to 0.90. The overall mean score of the total SAQ was 65.8 (9.9). Participants had the highest positive perception for Job Satisfaction with a mean score of 78.3 (16.1) while the lowest was evaluated for Stress Recognition with a mean score of 53.8 (28.6). Conclusion: The SAQ demonstrated satisfactory internal consistency and is suitable for use in the Kenyan context. The perception of patient safety culture in the Kenyan hospital is below international recommendations. There is a need for implementation of strategies for the improvement of the organization culture in Kenyan hospitals.

Patient safety education is recognised as a key ingredient in the development of safety competencies in healthcare professionals. To ensure that patient safety is emphasised in the preregistration education, it is important that it be integrated explicitly in the curriculum. This study aimed at identifying explicit patient safety concepts in the Kenyan nursing curriculum and exploring the perspectives of the nursing faculty members and clinical nurses on the integration of patient safety in the curriculum. A qualitative content analysis was conducted on the relevant curriculum documents from two universities. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted on a purposive sample of 13 staff members of the nursing faculty from the university and 14 clinical nurses from the hospitals where the students undergo clinical instruction. A thematic analysis was carried out on the transcribed interviews from which four themes and subthemes emerged. The curriculum content analysis did not identify any explicit patient safety content but the content was rather implicit within the curriculum as a series of statements and inferences to patient safety. The themes included curriculum issues, student characteristics, a patient safety culture, clinical education issues, and the academic-clinical relationship. To ensure training of a nurse who is competent in patient safety, the concepts must be integrated in the curriculum, the academic and clinical faculties need to be well equipped to teach and assess these concepts, the patient safety culture in clinical placement sites should be conducive to allow for learning about patient safety, and better collaboration between the academic and clinical settings for integration of patient safety in nursing education should be realised.