The delivery of safe care is an expectation and a central concern of individuals using the healthcare system, particularly for those who find themselves as patients in hospitals. Healthcare researchers' reports and discussions of harm while receiving hospital services speak to the global importance of improving patient safety. The occurrence and prevention of adverse safety events has been identified as a key area of interest in the patient safety movement, especially in relation to strengthening and improving operating room patient safety. I conducted a research project in British Columbia in 2010, responding to critical questions about patient safety specific to the operating room. The purpose of the study was to understand the significance and meaning of operating room nurses' personal narratives of patient safety. Narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) was the methodology chosen for the research, and conversational interviews were used to retrieve a storied view of experience. I engaged with four female operating room nurses, in order to elicit their life narratives and to explore the experiences that were influencing their patient safety stories.;The dissertation has been prepared using a traditional format and includes eight chapters. The first chapter is autobiographical in situation the study within the three-dimensional narrative inquiry space (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). The second chapter is a descriptive review based on a critical analysis of patient safety research and highlights salient aspects of patient safety relevant to the healthcare arena. The third chapter describes the methods used in this narrative inquiry, a process undertaken with participants that resulted in them retelling their lived stories based on their operating room nursing experiences. In the four findings chapters, the operating room nurses' specific stories are retold by the researcher, accompanied by the researcher's reflective analysis. The dissertation concludes with a synthesis and discussion chapter, whereby common narrative threads resonate across the four participants' stories and provide implications for contemplation by the professional discipline of nursing.
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