Measure Safety Climate Research Articles

Safety compliance and safety climate: A repeated cross-sectional study in the oil and gas industry

IntroductionViolations of safety rules and procedures are commonly identified as a causal factor in accidents in the oil and gas industry. Extensive knowledge on effective management practices related to improved compliance with safety procedures is therefore needed. Previous studies of the causal relationship between safety climate and safety compliance demonstrate that the propensity to act in accordance with prevailing rules and procedures is influenced to a large degree by workers' safety climate. Commonly, the climate measures employed differ from one study to another and identical measures of safety climate are seldom tested repeatedly over extended periods of time. This research gap is addressed in the present study. MethodThe study is based on a survey conducted four times among sharp-end workers of the Norwegian oil and gas industry (N=31,350). This is done by performing multiple tests (regression analysis) over a period of 7years of the causal relationship between safety climate and safety compliance. The safety climate measure employed is identical across the 7-year period. ConclusionsTaking all periods together, the employed safety climate model explained roughly 27% of the variance in safety compliance. The causal relationship was found to be stable across the period, thereby increasing the reliability and the predictive validity of the factor structure. The safety climate factor that had the most powerful effect on safety compliance was work pressure. Practical applicationsThe factor structure employed shows high predictive validity and should therefore be relevant to organizations seeking to improve safety in the petroleum sector. The findings should also be relevant to other high-hazard industries where safety rules and procedures constitute a central part of the approach to managing safety.

Evaluation of a survey tool to measure safety climate in Australian hospital pharmacy staff.

Safety climate evaluation is increasingly used by hospitals as part of quality improvement initiatives. Consequently, it is necessary to have validated tools to measure changes. To evaluate the construct validity and internal consistency of a survey tool to measure Australian hospital pharmacy patient safety climate. A 42 item cross-sectional survey was used to evaluate the patient safety climate of 607 Australian hospital pharmacy staff. Survey responses were initially mapped to the factor structure previously identified in European community pharmacy. However, as the data did not adequately fit the community pharmacy model, participants were randomly split into two groups with exploratory factor analysis performed on the first group (n=302) and confirmatory factor analyses performed on the second group (n=305). Following exploratory factor analysis (59.3% variance explained) and confirmatory factor analysis, a 6-factor model containing 28 items was obtained with satisfactory model fit (χ2 (335)=664.61 p<0.001, RMSEA=0.06, CFI=0.93, TLI=0.92), internal reliability (α>0.643) and model nesting between the groups (Δχ2 (22)=30.87, p=0.10). Three factors (blame culture, organisational learning and working conditions) were similar to those identified in European community pharmacy and labelled identically. Three additional factors (preoccupation with improvement; comfort to question authority; and safety issues being swept under the carpet) highlight hierarchical issues present in hospital settings. This study has demonstrated the validity of a survey to evaluate patient safety climate of Australian hospital pharmacy staff. Importantly, this validated factor structure may be used to evaluate changes in safety climate over time.

Measuring safety climate in acute hospitals: Rasch analysis of the safety attitudes questionnaire.

BackgroundThe Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ) is commonly used to assess staff perception of safety climate within their clinical environment. The psychometric properties of the SAQ have previously been explored with confirmatory factor analysis and found to have some issues with construct validity. This study aimed to extend the psychometric evaluations of the SAQ by using Rasch analysis.MethodsAssessment of internal construct validity included overall fit to the Rasch model (unidimensionality), response formats, targeting, differential item functioning (DIF) and person-separation index (PSI).ResultsA total of 420 nurses completed the SAQ (response rate 60 %). Data showed overall fit to a Rasch model of expected item functioning for interval scale measurement. The questionnaire demonstrated unidimensionality confirming the appropriateness of summing the items in each domain. Score reliabilities were appropriate (internal consistency PSI 0.6–0.8). However, participants were not using the response options on the SAQ in a consistent manner. All domains demonstrated suboptimal targeting and showed compromised score precision towards higher levels of safety climate (substantial ceiling effects).ConclusionThere was general support for the reliability of the SAQ as a measure of safety climate although it may not be able to detect small but clinically important changes in safety climate within an organisation. Further refinement of the SAQ is warranted. This may involve changing the response options and including new items to improve the overall targeting of the scale.Trial registrationThis study was registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, number ACTRN12611000332921 (21 March 2011).Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-016-1744-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The safety climate in primary care (SAP-C) study: study protocol for a randomised controlled feasibility study.

BackgroundResearch on patient safety has focused largely on secondary care settings, and there is a dearth of knowledge relating to safety culture or climate, and safety climate improvement strategies, in the context of primary care. This is problematic given the high rates of usage of primary care services and the myriad of opportunities for clinical errors daily. The current research programme aimed to assess the effectiveness of an intervention derived from the Scottish Patient Safety Programme in Primary Care. The intervention consists of safety climate measurement and feedback and patient chart audit using the trigger review method. The purpose of this paper is to describe the background to this research and to present the methodology of this feasibility study in preparation for a future definitive RCT.MethodsThe SAP-C study is a feasibility study employing a randomised controlled pretest-posttest design that will be conducted in 10 general practices in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Five practices will receive the safety climate intervention over a 9-month period. The five practices in the control group will continue care as usual but will complete the GP-SafeQuest safety climate questionnaire at baseline (month 1) and at the terminus of the intervention (month 9). The outcomes of the study include process evaluation metrics (i.e. rates of participant recruitment and retention, rates of completion of safety climate measures, qualitative data regarding participants’ perceptions of the intervention’s potential efficacy, acceptability, and sustainability), patient safety culture in intervention and control group practices at posttest, and instances of undetected patient harm identified through patient chart audit using the trigger review method.DiscussionThe planned study investigates an intervention to improve safety climate in Irish primary care settings. The resulting data may inform our knowledge of the frequency of undetected patient safety incidents in primary care, may contribute to improved patient safety practices in primary care settings, and may inform future research on patient safety improvement initiatives.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40814-016-0096-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Safety climate as an indicator for major accident risk: Can we use safety climate as an indicator on the plant level?

Measuring safety climate is regarded a proactive approach to safety management. With increased focus on developing indicators for major accidents, there is a need to critically assess the effectiveness of current practices in providing early warning signals for organizations at risk. The main purpose of the present study is to investigate the ability of safety climate tools to assess the risk of major accidents on the plant level. The aim is to take the perspective of decision-makers and ask in what way safety climate surveys can provide managers with warning signals related to organizational conditions for safety. Using data material from the Norwegian offshore oil and gas operations, we have tested whether three major close call incidents could be detected through using safety climate data from the period before the incidents. We examined the problem through testing (1) if the installations in question deviated from the industry average, and (2) if the trends for the installations could reveal that something was wrong. The results are inconclusive; only one of the installations deviates negatively from the industry average one year before the incident, and the trend variations are so small that it is questionable if they would have triggered actions from the management. The challenges when relying on safety climate as a means of managing risk of major accidents on individual installations are discussed.

On the relationship between safety climate and occupational burnout in healthcare organizations

The important concepts of safety climate and occupational burnout have been widely addressed by healthcare professionals. However, few researchers conducted comprehensive and detailed studies to investigate the relationship between safety climate and burnout, especially in healthcare organizations. The purpose of the study is therefore to investigate and establish a relationship between safety climate and occupational burnout. In addition, the relationship between job and socio-demographic characteristics (JSDC) with both safety climate and burnout is examined. In the present study a cross-sectional design was conducted using questionnaires to measure safety climate, occupational burnout and JSDC of nurses while descriptive, inferential statistics, path analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) were applied to test the relationships between the three parameters. The findings show a significant relationship between safety climate and unit type, job satisfaction, job interest, and stress. Likewise, there is a strong relationship between the lack of personal accomplishment and job satisfaction, job interest and stress. Also, safety climate has a strong correlation with both the frequency and the severity of occupational burnout dimensions. The results of the SEM also support a negative correlation between occupational burnout and safety climate, where a decrease in the latter is associated with an increase in the former.

Defining and Measuring Safety Climate: A Review of the Construction Industry Literature.

Safety climate measurements can be used to proactively assess an organization's effectiveness in identifying and remediating work-related hazards, thereby reducing or preventing work-related ill health and injury. This review article focuses on construction-specific articles that developed and/or measured safety climate, assessed safety climate's relationship with other safety and health performance indicators, and/or used safety climate measures to evaluate interventions targeting one or more indicators of safety climate. Fifty-six articles met our inclusion criteria, 80% of which were published after 2008. Our findings demonstrate that researchers commonly defined safety climate as perception based, but the object of those perceptions varies widely. Within the wide range of indicators used to measure safety climate, safety policies, procedures, and practices were the most common, followed by general management commitment to safety. The most frequently used indicators should and do reflect that the prevention of work-related ill health and injury depends on both organizational and employee actions. Safety climate scores were commonly compared between groups (e.g. management and workers, different trades), and often correlated with subjective measures of safety behavior rather than measures of ill health or objective safety and health outcomes. Despite the observed limitations of current research, safety climate has been promised as a useful feature of research and practice activities to prevent work-related ill health and injury. Safety climate survey data can reveal gaps between management and employee perceptions, or between espoused and enacted policies, and trigger communication and action to narrow those gaps. The validation of safety climate with safety and health performance data offers the potential for using safety climate measures as a leading indicator of performance. We discuss these findings in relation to the related concept of safety culture and offer suggestions for future research and practice including (i) deriving a common definition of safety climate, (ii) developing and testing construction-specific indicators of safety climate, and (iii) focusing on construction-specific issues such as the transient workforce, subcontracting, work organization, and induction/acculturation processes.

Validity Assessment of the Persian Version of the Nordic Safety Climate Questionnaire (NOSACQ-50): A Case Study in a Steel Company.

BackgroundThe Nordic Safety Climate Questionnaire-50 (NOSACQ-50) was developed by a team of Nordic occupational safety researchers based on safety climate and psychological theories. The aim of this study was to develop and validate the Persian version of NOSACQ-50 and assess the score of safety climate on a group of workers in a steel company in Iran.MethodsThe Persian version of NOSACQ-50 was distributed among 661 employees of a steel company in Qazvin Province (Iran). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis were used to determine the dimensions of the questionnaire. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed using Cronbach α coefficient. Pearson correlation test was applied to investigate the correlation between different dimensions.ResultsThe results of EFA showed that the Persian version of NOSACQ-50 consisted of six dimensions. The Cronbach α coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.94. The mean score of safety climate in all dimensions was 2.89 (standard deviation 0.60).ConclusionThe Persian version of NOSACQ-50 had a satisfactory validity for measuring safety climate in the studied Iranian population.

The virgin land of quality management: a first measure of patient safety climate at the National Hospital of the Faroe Islands

PurposeThe Faroe Islands are formally part of the Kingdom of Denmark, but the islands enjoy extensive autonomy as home ruled. In Denmark, extensive quality management initiatives have been implemented throughout hospitals, this was not the case in the Faroese Islands in 2013. The purpose of this study is to investigate the patient safety culture in the National Hospital of the Faroe Islands prior to implementation of quality management initiatives.MethodsThe Danish version of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ-DK) was distributed electronically to 557 staff members from five medical centers of the hospital, and one administrative unit. SAQ-DK has six cultural dimensions. The proportion of respondents with positive attitudes and mean scale scores were described, and comparison between medical specialties, and between clinical leaders and frontline staff was made using analysis of variance and chi-square test, respectively.ResultsThe response rate was 65.8% (N=367). Job satisfaction was rated most favorable, and the perceived culture of the top management least favorable. Safety climate was the dimension with the greatest variability across the 28 units. The diagnostic center had the most favorable culture of all centers. More leaders than frontline staff had positive attitudes toward teamwork and safety climate, and working conditions, respectively. Also, the leaders perceived these dimensions more positive than the frontline staff, P<0.05. Among three management levels, the unit management was perceived most favorable and the top management least favorable.ConclusionThe management group is recommended to raise awareness of their role in supporting a safe and caring environment for patients and staff, moreover the leaders should ensure that every day work achieves its objectives; keeping the patients safe. Furthermore, following the development in patient safety culture over time is recommended.

ANALISIS FAKTOR BUDAYA KESELAMATAN DAN KESEHATAN KERJA (K3) PADA PENANGANAN KARGO DI BANDARA SOEKARNO HATTA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Flight safety determined by various factors which related to human factors, both preflight and in-flight service. Cargo Handling is one of the contributors of airplane crash in the air. The purpose of this study are to obtain a profile of Health and Safety Culture (K3) and also to determine the factors that shape the Health and Safety Culture at the level of organizations, groups, individuals and the physical environment. This study can be categorized as a quantitative research with survey approach took place at Soekarno Hatta International Airport. Methods of analysis which employed in this research are Safety Climate Measurement Model of The British Health Safety Commission and Factor analysis . Population of this research is 110 employees of cargo warehousing with sample 53 employees using simple random sampling technique. The result of the anylisis shows that the values of Healt and Safety Culture in the cargo handling at Soekarno Hatta Airport are above the score / index average 5.0 which means that in general the whole individual in this section posses the moderate level of Healt and Safety values . The factor analysis which applied has reduced 19 factors into 11 factors that influence the Health and Safety Culture.

REVIEW AND ADOPT A TOOL FOR MEASURING SAFETY CLIMATE IN INTERNATIONAL CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

The construction industry is deemed to be one of the most dangerous industries worldwide due to its special characteristics of production process. Globalization has brought about an increasing number of construction companies involving themselves in the international construction market. Due to involvement of participants from different countries and regions, international construction projects possess complexities from national, organizational and individual perspectives which may affect construction safety management adversely and lead to unsatisfactory safety performance. Safety climate, defined as “a unified set of cognitions regarding the safety aspects of the organization”, is often considered to be a predictor of safety behavior and performance. After conducting a comprehensive review of existing literature related to safety climate measurement in construction sector, this study highlights several conditions for selecting suitable safety climate instruments specific in international construction projects.

Development and validation of a multilevel safety climate measurement tool in the construction industry

Construction organizations are large and complex with decentralized structures, and characterized by non-routine work undertaken by semi-autonomous work groups. Construction workers’ perceptions of safety climate can form at different levels and vary between subunits. A multilevel safety climate measurement tool was proposed, which identified five important safety agents, i.e. client, principal contractor, supervisor, co-workers, and individual workers. Surveys were conducted at three construction projects commissioned by Fonterra Co-operative Group. A total of 356 participants completed the survey. The data was subject to scale reliability analysis and factor analysis. The results showed that all scales achieved satisfactory internal consistency and the multilevel factorial structure was generally supported. At the organizational level, the tool measures clients’ overall safety priority and safety actions, and principal contractors’ general commitment to safety. At the group level, the tool measures supervisors’ safety actions and safety expectations, and co-workers’ general safety values and practices. The tool also measures individual safety responses reflected by safety compliance and safety participation. The measurement tool would help construction organizations to diagnose potential weaknesses in their safety management practices for safety improvement and also help to develop a social and cultural work environment that is supportive of safety at all levels.

Dimensions of Safety Climate among Iranian Nurses.

Background: Workplace safety has been a concern of workers and managers for decades. Measuring safety climate is crucial in improving safety performance. It is also a method of benchmarking safety perception. Objective: To develop and validate a psychometrics scale for measuring nurses' safety climate. Methods: Literature review, subject matter experts and nurse's judgment were used in items developing. Content validity and reliability for new tool were tested by content validity index (CVI) and test-retest analysis, respectively. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with varimax rotation was used to improve the interpretation of latent factors. Results: A 40-item scale in 6 factors was developed, which could explain 55% of the observed variance. The 6 factors included employees' involvement in safety and management support, compliance with safety rules, safety training and accessibility to personal protective equipment, hindrance to safe work, safety communication and job pressure, and individual risk perception. Conclusion: The proposed scale can be used in identifying the needed areas to implement interventions in safety climate of nurses.

Safety climate in English general practices: workload pressures may compromise safety.

ObjectivesAlthough most health care interactions in the developed world occur in general practice, most of the literature on patient safety has focused on secondary care services. To address this issue, we have constructed a patient safety toolkit for English general practices. We report how practice and respondent characteristics affect scores on our safety climate measure, the PC‐Safequest, and address recent concerns with high levels of workload in English general practices.MethodsWe administered the PC‐Safequest, a 30‐item tool that was designed to measure safety climate in primary care practices, to 335 primary care staff members in 31 practices in England. Practice characteristics, such as list size and deprivation in the area the practice served, and respondent characteristics, such as whether the respondent was a manager, were also collected and used in a multilevel analysis to predict PC‐Safequest scores.ResultsManagers gave their practices significantly higher safety climate scores than did non‐managers. Respondents with more years of experience had a more negative perception of the level of workload in their practice. Practices with more registered patients and in areas of higher deprivation provided lower safety climate scores.ConclusionsManagers rated their practices more positively on our safety climate measure, so the differences between the perceptions of managers and other staff may need to be reduced in order to build a strong safety culture. Excessive workload for more experienced staff and lower safety climate scores for larger practices may reflect ‘burnout’. Concerns that pressures in primary care could affect patient safety are discussed.

‘Speaking up’ about patient safety concerns and unprofessional behaviour among residents: validation of two scales

ObjectiveTo develop and test the psychometric properties of two new survey scales aiming to measure the extent to which the clinical environment supports speaking up about (a) patient safety concerns...

Measurement equivalence of a safety climate scale across multiple trucking companies

To promote and establish a safe environment in an organization, it is critical to get an accurate measurement and understanding of employees’ safety climate perceptions. The goals of the current study were (1) to assess the measurement equivalence (ME) of the safety climate scale for mobile lone workers developed by Huang et al. (2013, Transp. Res. Part F Traffic Psychol. Behav., 17, 5) across different trucking companies with different managerial and safety practices and (2) to adopt confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)‐based and item response theory (IRT)‐based ME testing techniques that allow for more reliable measurement of important psychological safety constructs and accurate use of the measure. ME refers to the extent to which scales or items have the same measurement implications, such as factor structure of the scale, amount of explained variance with the scale constructs, and item functioning parameters from IRT framework, and are interchangeable across measurement situations. Based on the shared mental model theory, social learning theory, and social exchange theory, ME of safety climate was examined across the eight trucking companies recruited in the Huang et al.'s study. A CFA‐based linear approach and an IRT‐based nonlinear approach were used. Results supported that the safety climate scale items and measurement constructs have consistent meaning across different trucking companies, and the safety climate scores based on the scales can be used for the comparison of safety climate levels across multiple trucking companies as well as safety climate interventions.Practitioner points Generalizability of psychological measurement tools, such as safety climate scales, can be examined with ME analysis based on CFA and IRT frameworks. Measurement equivalence of the trucking industry‐specific safety climate scale (Huang et al., 2013) was supported across multiple trucking companies, indicating that there may be common features of safety climate dimensions that are particularly relevant to the trucking industry. The trucking industry‐specific safety climate scale can be used to gauge the level of safety climate within a given trucking company and to make cross‐company comparisons.

Dow advances market driven actions with acquisition of Univation Technologies LLC

Human behavior and decision making are of decisive importance with respect to process safety and risk control. Human factors or human factor engineering covers many aspects serving the goal of adapting technology to human capabilities in sensing, information processing, and decision making without error. It has a direct effect on occupational health and safety. By occupational risk modeling ways to improve personal safety are found. Human error has been the object of many modeling studies, in part for data in predictive risk analysis but mostly to avoid errors. Error variability is large. Safety culture is an exponent of the organizational whole. It is greatly influenced by the attitude of leadership. It cannot be measured directly, but measurement of safety climate as a result of surveying supervisor–subordinate interactions is indicative. Monitoring safety performance indicators is important for observing trends in the cultural health of an organization.

A study of assessment of patient safety climate in tertiary care hospitals

BackgroundMedical errors are being detected with increasing frequency in healthcare environment, in many cases leading to patient harm. Measurement and improvement of patient safety climate has been identified as a strategic effort towards addressing this vital issue. MethodSafety Attitude Questionnaire (SAQ), validated by previous research was administered to 300 respondents in three tertiary care hospitals of India, the respondents representing various categories of healthcare workers and variations in safety scale score was analyzed by various statistical tools. ResultsNo variation was observed in the Patient Safety Index score among the study hospitals. However, significant variations were observed among different categories of healthcare workers across dimensions of Teamwork, Perception of Management and Stress Recognition. Multiple Regression models identified Teamwork and Perception of Management to have significant correlation with Patient Safety Index Score. ConclusionPatient Safety Climate can be effectively assessed and such assessment utilized for focused improvement efforts towards safety in healthcare organizations.

Development and Validation of a Safety Climate Scale for Manufacturing Industry.

BackgroundThis paper describes the development of a scale for measuring safety climate.MethodsThis study was conducted in six manufacturing companies in Iran. The scale developed through conducting a literature review about the safety climate and constructing a question pool. The number of items was reduced to 71 after performing a screening process.ResultsThe result of content validity analysis showed that 59 items had excellent item content validity index (≥ 0.78) and content validity ratio (> 0.38). The exploratory factor analysis resulted in eight safety climate dimensions. The reliability value for the final 45-item scale was 0.96. The result of confirmatory factor analysis showed that the safety climate model is satisfactory.ConclusionThis study produced a valid and reliable scale for measuring safety climate in manufacturing companies.

Survey on patient safety climate in public hospitals in China.

BackgroundPatient safety climate has been recognized as a core determinant for improving safety in hospitals. Describing workforce perceptions of patient safety climate is an important part of safety climate management. This study aimed to describe staff’s perceptions of patient safety climate in public hospitals in Shanghai, China and to determine how perceptions of patient safety climate differ between different types of workers in the U.S. and China.MethodsSurvey of employees of 6 secondary, general public hospitals in Shanghai conducted during 2013 using a modified version of the U.S. Patient Safety Climate in Health Care Organizations (PSCHO) tool. The percentage of “problematic responses” (PPRs) was used to measure safety climate, and the PPRs were compared among employees with different job types, using χ2 tests and multivariate regression models.ResultsPerceptions of patient safety climate were relatively positive among hospital employees and similar to those of employees in U.S. hospitals along most dimensions. For workers in Chinese hospitals, the scales of “fear of blame” and “fear of shame” had the highest PPRs, whereas in the United States the scale of “fear of shame” had among the lowest PPRs. As in the United States, hospital managers in China perceived a more positive patient safety climate overall than other types of personnel.Conclusions“Fear of shame” and “fear of blame” may be important barriers to improvement of patient safety in Chinese hospitals. Research on the effect of patient safety climate on outcomes is necessary to implement effective polices to improve patient safety and quality outcomes in China.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12913-015-0710-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.