Patient protection has become one of the key elements of the quality of health care systems in Saudi Arabia. Medical errors that threaten patient safety are mediated by several factors including system risk factors. Hence, we used a self-structured questionnaire to assess and rank the system factors according to the perceptions of nurses working in the hospitals of the ministry of health in Hail, KSA. Eight out of twelve factors tested were perceived as threatening factors of the patient safety that are; 'Shortage of medical staff', 'Poor design of the hospital structure', 'Long working hours', 'Overcrowding of patients','Poor coordination between hospital departments, 'Punitive and blaming environment, 'Lack of clinical practice standards' and, 'Poor financial incentives'. Thus, considering the negative impact of the identified threatening system factors in this study on patient safety, urgent planning and managing appropriate corrective actions should be designed to improve patient safety issues.
Keywords: Patient safety; Saudi Arabia; medical errors; system factors.
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