Objectives:To evaluate the occurrence of patient adverse events in Korean hospitals as perceived by nurses and examine the correlation between patient adverse events with the nurse practice environment at nurse and hospital level.Methods:In total, 3096 nurses working in 60 general inpatient hospital units were included. A two-level logistic regression analysis was performed.Results:At the hospital level, patient adverse events included patient falls (60.5%), nosocomial infections (51.7%), pressure sores (42.6%) and medication errors (33.3%). Among the hospital-level explanatory variables associated with the nursing practice environment, ‘physician- nurse relationship’ correlated with medication errors while ‘education for improving quality of care’ affected patient falls.Conclusions:The doctor-nurse relationship and access to education that can improve the quality of care at the hospital level may help decrease the occurrence of patient adverse events.

Objectives:To examine whether the nursing practice environment at the hospital-level affects the job satisfaction and turnover intention of hospital nurses. Methods:Among the 11 731 nurses who participated in the Korea Health and Medical Workers’ Union’s educational program, 5654 responded to our survey. Data from 3096 nurses working in 185 general inpatient wards at 60 hospitals were analyzed using multilevel logistic regression modeling. Results:Having a standardized nursing process (odds ratio [OR], 4.21; p<0.001), adequate nurse staffing (OR, 4.21; p<0.01), and good doctor-nurse relationship (OR, 4.15; p<0.01), which are hospital-level variables based on the Korean General Inpatients Unit Nursing Work Index (KGU-NWI), were significantly related to nurses’ job satisfaction. However, no hospital-level variable from the KGU-NWI was significantly related to nurses’ turnover intention. Conclusions:Favorable nursing practice environments are associated with job satisfaction among nurses. In particular, having a standardized nursing process, adequate nurse staffing, and good doctor-nurse relationship were found to positively influence nurses’ job satisfaction. However, the nursing practice environment was not related to nurses’ turnover intention.

KGU-NWI including six subfactors and 26 items is an applicable instrument to investigate nurse work environment in Korean hospital general inpatient unit.

In Korea, ALT and AST are strongly associated with BMI and increased progressively from the lowest to the highest strata of BMI. The association of BMI with aminotransferase levels was modified by age and sex.