Patient safety culture in primary and home care services

Letícia Martins Lousada,Beatriz Viana Da Silva,Rhanna Emanuela Fontenele Lima De Carvalho,Patrícia Freire De Vasconcelos,Natália Lúcia Lima De Oliveira,Ismael Brioso Bastos,Francisco Clécio Da Silva Dutra

doi:10.1186/s12875-020-01263-1

Letícia Martins Lousada, Beatriz Viana Da Silva + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12875-020-01263-1

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Abstract

BackgroundSafety culture is still a poorly studied subject in primary care and home care, although these settings are considered gateways to access to healthcare. This study aims to evaluate safety culture in primary and home care settings.MethodsAn observational cross-sectional study was carried out with 147 professionals from nine districts covered by one home care program and six primary healthcare centres. The Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ) was used to evaluate the safety culture, in which scores ≥75 are indicative of a positive safety culture.ResultsA total of 56 (86,1%) questionnaires returned from the home care professionals and 91 (86,6%) from the primary care professionals. The Job satisfaction domain was the best evaluated, achieving a score of 88.8 in home care and 75.1 in primary care. The achievement of high scores on Safety Climate, Job Satisfaction, Teamwork Climate, and Total SAQ was related to male gender, and time of professional experience of three to 4 years. Perception of management and Working conditions had the lowest scores, and this result was related with long time of experience.ConclusionsIt is concluded that professionals working in home care gave higher scores for safety culture in their workplace than the primary care workers.

Highlights

Safety culture is still a poorly studied subject in primary care and home care, these settings are considered gateways to access to healthcare
This is a cross-sectional study conducted in one home care service and in six primary care centres located in the metropolitan region of Fortaleza, Brazil
All 69 professionals working in the Multiprofessional Home Care Team (MHCT) of the nine cities, and all 95 professionals working in the six primary care centres were invited to participate

Summary

Introduction

Safety culture is still a poorly studied subject in primary care and home care, these settings are considered gateways to access to healthcare. Providing safe care means changing attitudes and practices of all professionals involved in patient care. In the workplace, this requires a safety culture that strengthens the commitment and performance of the multidisciplinary team, as well as specific competencies to ensure patient safety [1]. Safety culture is the product of a set of values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies, and behaviours that determine the commitment, style, and competence of an individual or a group in safety promotion. These behaviours include how managers and professionals act to improve. Actions and research in this theme are mostly conducted in hospitals and clinics since the culture of patient safety outside the hospital is still a challenge to be overcome [6, 7]

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