Application of the hospital survey on patient safety culture (HSOPSC) to dentistry

Abstract

Copyright © 2013 by Journal of Korean Academy of Oral Health This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objectives: The topic of patient safety has recently gained attention across healthcare institutes. Building a broad awareness of patient safety issues among dental care personnel, thus establishing a sound patient safety culture, has beneficial prophylactic effects on the quality assurance of dental care services. This study examines the adequacy and validity of the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC) questionnaire developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) for application to Korean dental care institutes. Methods: The HSOPSC, which is a self-administered questionnaire survey, was administered to dental care workers who participated in the 2011 Dental Care Quality Assurance Symposium. The reliability and construct validity of the questionnaire were tested using STATA 11.0; factor, reliability, and correlation analyses were performed. Results: Awareness of patient safety was dealt with in 10 subareas comprising 38 items. The 10 subareas were included patient safety policy at the institute level, open communication, patient safety-related expectations and behaviors of managers, frequency of reporting on patient safety-related incidents, and teamwork within the department. Both the construct validity and internal consistency of each factor were confirmed to be adequate. Conclusions: The results of the adequacy test for the application of this questionnaire to dental care institutes revealed that most items had a certain level of validity and reliability. However, it is necessary to reflect upon the specificity of dental care services to assess patient safety culture within dental care institutes more accurately.