Health care staffs’ perception of patient safety culture in hospital settings and factors of importance for this

Anna Nordin,Kersti Theander,Bodil Wilde-Larsson,Gun Nordström

doi:10.4236/ojn.2013.38a005

Abstract

Many hospital patients are affected by adverse events. Managers are important when improving safety. The perception of patient safety culture varies among health care staff. Health care staff (n = 1023) working in medical, surgical or mixed medical-surgical health care divisions answered the 51 items (14 dimensions) Swedish Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (S-HSOPSC). Respondents with a managerial function scored higher than non-managers for 11 of 14 dimensions, indicating patient safety culture strengths for a majority of dimensions. Enrolled nurses and staff with experience > 10 years also scored high for several dimensions. The 12 dimensions and sample characteristics explained 49% and 26% of the variance for the outcome dimensions Overall Perceptions of Safety and Frequency of Incident Reporting, respectively. RNs, ENs and physicians have different views on patient safety culture. Hospital Management Support and Organisational Learning is some important factors influencing patient safety culture. Bridging the gap in health care staff’s perceptions of safety in order to improve patient safety is of utmost importance. Managers have the responsibility to foster patient safety culture at their workplace and can thus benefit from results when improving safety for patients.

Highlights

Adverse events are unintended injuries or complications caused by health care rather than by the patient’s disease, leading to death, disability or prolonged hospital stay [1]
Results from the present study show that managers perceive patient safety culture to be stronger than nonmanagerial health care staff do and Registered nurses (RNs), ENs and physicians have different views of patient safety culture
Patient safety culture differs with regard to sex, age and total work experience

Summary

Introduction

Adverse events are unintended injuries or complications caused by health care rather than by the patient’s disease, leading to death, disability or prolonged hospital stay [1]. Previous studies in various countries have shown that between three and 17% of all patients experience one or more adverse events during hospital stay [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]. Patient safety culture guides managers and health care staff in their behavior [10]. Studies have shown relations between a strong patient safety culture and patient outcome such as shorter length of stay [13], willingness of treatment error reporting [14], fewer falls among patients [15] and lower rates of in-hospital complications e.g. pneumothorax, infection due to care and postoperative sepsis [16]

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Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion