Description of healthcare professionals’ attitudes on patient safety in the Tunisian operating rooms

Abstract

Abstract Background Currently, ensuring surgical safety remain a worldwide challenge. The description of operating room professionals' attitudes toward patient safety in their work units helps to identify strengths and weaknesses in term of patient safety, allowing a clearer vision of the safety aspects that require special attention. This study aimed to describe healthcare professionals' attitudes on patient safety in the Tunisian operating rooms. Methods This is a cross-sectional descriptive study spread over a 6-month period (October-April 2018). It was conducted among healthcare professionals working in the operating rooms of the two teaching hospitals of Sousse (Tunisia). The measuring instrument used is the Operating Room Management Attitudes Questionnaire (ORMAQ), which consists of 60 items spread over 8 dimensions. The latter has been subjected to a transcultural validation process inspired from the Vallerand method. Data entry and analysis was done by the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS.20) software. Results A total of 303 professionals participated in the study (participation rate= 76.13%). The most developed dimension was teamwork and the least developed was “Procedural errors/ compliance”. Items' results show that 94.8% of professionals confirmed that seniors should encourage medical and paramedical staff to ask questions, 53.5% of professionals stated that personal problems can adversely affect their performance and 87.5% agreed that operating rooms' team members share responsibilities for prioritizing activities in high workload situations. In addition, 50.9% of participants reported that the managers don't listen to staff or care about their concerns. Conclusions Operating rooms professionals' attitudes toward patient safety in their work units reflect an alarming situation regarding the quality of healthcare provided to patients. These results should be taken into consideration to guide future intervention on quality management improvement. Key messages Considering human factors is essential to improve safety in operating rooms and has an important role in reducing the occurrence of adverse events in these settings. It is important to study the underlying attitudes that determine the human factors for a better understanding and resolution of patient safety problems.