The newly discovered coronavirus (COVID-19) has become a pandemic, infecting thousands of people around the world. This study examines nurses’ demographic information (age, gender, marital status, area of practice, total years of experience in the current hospital, work region, monthly salary, educational level, workplace, nationality, working hours per day, total nursing experience, and the respondents’ main source of information on COVID-19), awareness, attitudes, prevention, and perceptions of COVID-19 during the outbreak in Saudi Arabia. A cross-sectional descriptive design of 500 nurses working at government and non-governmental hospitals in five regions in Saudi Arabia were selected using convenience sampling. The Kruskal–Wallis test was applied and the Mann–Whitney test was utilized as a post hoc test. The majority of nurses in this study, 96.85%, had excellent knowledge of COVID-19. Some (83.2%) of nurses reported significant prevention knowledge and treatment skills about COVID-19, while 7.6% had little knowledge about prevention. More than half of the nurses (60.4%) had high positive attitudes toward caring for COVID-19 patients. In conclusion, female nurses, married nurses, and bachelor’s degree nurses had greater awareness, better attitude, and prevention clinical experience towards COVID-19. Meanwhile, non-Saudi nurses had higher self-reported awareness, positive attitudes, optimal prevention, and positive perceptions compared to Saudi nurses. This study provides baseline information immediately needed to enable health authorities to prioritize training programs that support nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Inadequate pain management affects the patient outcome. Pain assessment and management are fundamental in nursing care, and nurses must be equipped with adequate knowledge and a positive attitude toward pain assessment and management. This study aims to evaluate nurses’ knowledge and attitudes regarding pain assessment and management at King Fahad Hospital, Al-Madinah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A quantitative, cross-sectional survey, using a self-administered questionnaire, was conducted from January to February 2020 with 660 registered nurses working in the Emergency Department, critical care units, inpatient and outpatient departments at King Fahad Hospital in Al-Medinah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The data were analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics. Of the 660 nurses, 291 responded, resulting in a response rate of 44.09%. The participants’ scores ranged from 17.7% to 100%, with a mean score 45.29%. The majority of the participants (70.1%) had a poor level of knowledge and attitudes (score < 50%). Nurses working in the outpatient department scored significantly higher than the group working in the Emergency Department and inpatient wards. Deficient knowledge and negative attitudes were found and nurses continue to underassess and undertreat pain. Nursing school curricula and in-service continuous education must equip nurses with the required knowledge and attitudes to enable them to manage pain effectively.

Purpose: To translate and examine the psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the Summary of Diabetes Self-Care Activities. Design: An instrument translation and validation study. Settings: A total of 243 participants (33 first sample and 210 second sample) diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus were recruited from four primary health care centers in Saudi Arabia. Methods: The study was guided by the World Health Organization guidelines for translation and validation of instrument. Results: Translation indicators showed satisfactory outcomes for each included process in the forward-translation, an expert panel, and back-translation stages. Reliability and validity outcomes were as follows: test–retest, r = .912 and p < .001; split-half = .9; and Cronbach’s alpha (α) = .76. The alpha scores for the subscales were as follows: diet, .89; exercise, .83; blood glucose testing, .92; and foot care, .77. Principal component analysis revealed the presence of four components with eigenvalues greater than 1.0, explaining 34.4, 16.4, 15.4, and 11.2% of the variance in everyday practices for these items, respectively (accumulated = 77.1%). Conclusions: The translation and validation processes revealed acceptable psychometric properties. The instrument could evaluate diabetes self-care in Saudi Arabia and has the potential to be used in other Arabic-speaking populations.

The absence of scope of practice guidelines may lead to role ambiguity and legal consequences in nursing practice. This study measures the scope of practice of nurses in Saudi Arabia. The study utilized a descriptive cross-sectional design using an electronic version of the Arabic Actual Scope of Nursing Practice (A-ASCOP) questionnaire among 928 nurses. Descriptive analysis was followed by a t-test and an analysis of variance (ANOVA). Significance was assured through the Bonferroni test; the effect size was measured through partial η2 when appropriate. The A-ASCOP mean score of each dimension ranged from 4.29 to 4.72 (overall mean = 4.59). Significant overall ASCOP score variations were evident, with higher ASCOP among expatriate nurses, females, Hospital Operation Program (HOP) nurses, and nurses with postgraduate qualifications. Partial η2 showed a small effect of <0.016. Low-complexity nursing tasks showed insignificant differences no matter the nurse’s position, but were less practiced by Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) and advanced-degree nurses than by those with a diploma education. High complexity of ASCOP was practiced significantly more often by postgraduate-prepared nurses than by diploma-educated nurses. The study showed that there is a range of variation in nursing practice, but that the lack of internal regulations (nursing scope of practice) has no effect on nursing duties. In a country such as Saudi Arabia, where massive national improvement initiatives are frequent, clearly defining the scope of practice for nurses is essential and needs to be done through government mandates. Further studies are essential to define what the scope of practice should include.

Introduction: Patient safety captures the essence of the primary principle of medical ethics, primum non nocere, first do no harm; this is an important concern in the health care system. Nurses are indispensable members of this system and are the largest group of health care providers involved in the direct delivery of patient care. As an integral part of the health care system, it is important to know nurses’ opinions on patient safety culture. Objectives: First, to evaluate and measure the existing safety culture and safety of patients in medical−surgical wards (MSW) in hospitals located in the Qassim region, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Second, to survey the opinion of registered nurses and supervisors/managers about safety culture and issues concerned with safety in hospitals in the region. Materials and Methods: A validated cross-sectional survey, namely the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC), was used. This survey queried 300 nurses in different MSWs in four hospitals in the Qassim Region. Results: Overall, a positive culture of safety exists in MSWs, with 69% of RNs rating their wards as having great/excellent safety culture. Notably, some participants felt it was problematic that blame was assigned to nurses for reported errors. While 55.9% of participants noted that all errors or narrowly avoided errors had been reported, less than half actually reported errors in the last year. Conclusion: The perceived safety culture was largely positive; however, the results also indicated that a culture of safety comes with some risk and blame.