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During this pandemic, it is crucial to implement early interventions to help nurses manage their mental wellbeing by providing them with information regarding coping skills, preventive risk assessment approaches (such as hospital preparedness and rapid risk assessment), and the ability to respond. This study evaluated the effect of fear and risk assessment management on nurses' mental wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia. A total of 507 nurses who worked in tertiary public hospitals were asked to take a descriptive design survey. Three survey scales were used to assess the survey: the Risk Assessment Scale, the Fear of COVID-19 Scale, and the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale. Independent t-tests and a one-way ANOVA were used to examine the association between fear of COVID-19 and nurses' demographic characteristics on their mental wellbeing. A multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the predictors associated with mental wellbeing. Findings revealed that almost half of the participants showed moderate positive mental wellbeing, 49.7%, while only 14% had low levels of fear on the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well being Scale. Most of the respondents had low levels of fear on the Fear of COVID-19 Scale, 45%, while only 15% had high levels of fear on the scale. Then, some demographic variables, such as “age,” “nationality,” “total years of experience in the current hospital,” and “region you work at” had statistically significant differences with p < 0.5. Meanwhile, risk assessment is also associated with mental wellbeing scores. All items on the Fear of COVID-19 Scale showed no significant difference with a P > 0.05. In conclusion, most nurses providing direct patient care to a patient with COVID-19 emphasized the importance of wearing PPE and performing hand hygiene before and after any clean or aseptic procedure. Meanwhile, although almost all nurses were vaccinated, they were still afraid of a COVID-19 infection. Additionally, the results reported that the older the nurses are, the better their mental wellbeing scores. Non-Saudi nurses had higher perceived mental wellbeing scores than Saudi nurses, and different working environments corresponded to different mental wellbeing scores. Finally, nurses' risk assessment was associated with mental wellbeing scores.

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.