Abstract
Background: Although extensive Mother-friendly Hospital initiatives have been improved the quality of maternity care in Iran, recent national reports have been indicated that obstetrics errors are still common. The current study aimed to assess safety attitude in the maternity care units of public hospitals in a region with high rate of maternal death in Iran. Materials and Methods: Data was collected from 314 midwives, specialist and also managers working in all public hospitals in 2016. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used to analyze psychometric features of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ). Results: 86.2% of the participants (n = 314) completed the questionnaire. Results showed that lower scores in teamwork, safety climate and also job satisfaction subcomponents. The working conditions and stress recognition had the highest negative scores. There was a significant relationship between the following subcomponents and work load: teamwork (r = ﹣0.416, P-value = 0.05), stress recognition (r = 0.40, P-value = 0.05) and also working conditions (r = 0.421; P-value = 0.02). The score of midwives was significantly lower than specialists regarding job satisfaction (P-value = 0.014), working conditions (P-value = 0.02) and also the overall safety attitude score (P-value = 0.001). About 63% of respondents reported no error during the last year. The mean of error reporting during the last year significantly increased among specialists compared to midwives (P-value = 0.001). Conclusion: Maternity care units in the region with high maternal death have been faced with many intangible barriers related to safety attitude such as poor teamwork climate, working condition and also poor stress recognition. It is now needed to promote supportive environment for midwives and also strengthening staff cohesion through guiding the strategic direction of current maternity risk management system in creating open and just culture, improving leadership behaviors among senior managers and also addressing poor staffing levels.
Highlights
Prevention of adverse events in maternity care is recognized as an essential priority for health care systems especially in developing countries [1] [2] [3]
Background: extensive Mother-friendly Hospital initiatives have been improved the quality of maternity care in Iran, recent national reports have been indicated that obstetrics errors are still common
Maternity care units in the region with high maternal death have been faced with many intangible barriers related to safety attitude such as poor teamwork climate, working condition and poor stress recognition
Summary
Prevention of adverse events in maternity care is recognized as an essential priority for health care systems especially in developing countries [1] [2] [3]. Iranian maternity risk management system has been developed based on the analysis of root causes of near-miss cases and all universities have been obligated to promote the structure and processes of safety since 2008, [6]-[12] the obstetrical errors are still common, [7] [8] To prevent adverse events, it is critical to take comprehensive and proactive approach in the maternity risk management system [13] [14] [15] It seems that in the current maternity care system, organizational issues that contribute to unsafe conditions have not been assessed in order to change safety behaviors of staffs and to mitigate adverse events [8]. Conclusion: Maternity care units in the region with high maternal death have been faced with many intangible barriers related to safety attitude such as poor teamwork climate, working condition and poor stress recognition. It is needed to promote supportive environment for midwives and strengthening staff cohesion through guiding the strategic direction of current maternity risk management system in creating open and just culture, improving leadership behaviors among senior managers and addressing poor staffing levels
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
