Instrument for Measuring Patient Safety Culture: Literature Review

The implementation of safe and quality care with attention to patient safety, requires organization’s effort to create and cultivating patient safety culture. The purpose of this article was to map the instruments used in measuring patient safety culture in healthcare organizations. The method used integrated literature review from various sources of research articles published from 2015 to 2020. The article included if it was available in full text and open access as well as articles described the instruments of patient safety culture or measurement of patient safety culture using one of the instruments of measurement of patient safety culture. The results of the literature review unravel the findings of three instruments such as HSOPSC (Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture), MaPSaF (Manchester Patient Safety Assessment Framework) and SAQ (Safety Attitudes Questionnaire). We concluded all three instruments contained four dimensions of patient safety culture, namely open culture, just culture, reporting culture and learning culture and were widely used to measure patient safety culture in hospitals, primary health facilities and other health facilities.

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Applying importance-performance analysis to patient safety culture

International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance ◽

10.1108/ijhcqa-03-2015-0039 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 28 (8) ◽

pp. 826-840 ◽

Cited By ~ 13

Author(s):

Yii-Ching Lee ◽

Hsin-Hung Wu ◽

Wan-Lin Hsieh ◽

Shao-Jen Weng ◽

Liang-Po Hsieh ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Patient Safety ◽

Performance Analysis ◽

Safety Culture ◽

Safety Climate ◽

Patient Safety Culture ◽

Hospital Staff ◽

Healthcare Organizations ◽

Content Type ◽

Safety Attitudes ◽

Upper Management

Purpose – The Sexton et al.’s (2006) safety attitudes questionnaire (SAQ) has been widely used to assess staff’s attitudes towards patient safety in healthcare organizations. However, to date there have been few studies that discuss the perceptions of patient safety both from hospital staff and upper management. The purpose of this paper is to improve and to develop better strategies regarding patient safety in healthcare organizations. Design/methodology/approach – The Chinese version of SAQ based on the Taiwan Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation is used to evaluate the perceptions of hospital staff. The current study then lies in applying importance-performance analysis technique to identify the major strengths and weaknesses of the safety culture. Findings – The results show that teamwork climate, safety climate, job satisfaction, stress recognition and working conditions are major strengths and should be maintained in order to provide a better patient safety culture. On the contrary, perceptions of management and hospital handoffs and transitions are important weaknesses and should be improved immediately. Research limitations/implications – The research is restricted in generalizability. The assessment of hospital staff in patient safety culture is physicians and registered nurses. It would be interesting to further evaluate other staff’s (e.g. technicians, pharmacists and others) opinions regarding patient safety culture in the hospital. Originality/value – Few studies have clearly evaluated the perceptions of healthcare organization management regarding patient safety culture. Healthcare managers enable to take more effective actions to improve the level of patient safety by investigating key characteristics (either strengths or weaknesses) that healthcare organizations should focus on.

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How to Measure Patient Safety Culture? a Literature Review of Instruments

Acta Medica Martiniana ◽

10.2478/acm-2021-0010 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (2) ◽

pp. 69-79

Author(s):

D Bartonickova ◽

D Kalankova ◽

K Ziakova

Keyword(s):

Patient Safety ◽

Literature Review ◽

Safety Culture ◽

Improve Patient Safety ◽

Hospital Setting ◽

Patient Safety Culture ◽

Care Quality ◽

Assessment Tools ◽

Hospital Environment ◽

Safety Attitudes

Abstract Introduction: Patient safety culture is described as employees’ shared values, attitudes, and behaviours in a healthcare organization. Its main goal is to improve patient safety. Assessment of patient safety culture in the hospital environment is most often carried out using self-assessment tools. Although several of these tools have been developed, their comprehensive overview is lacking in literature. Aim: To provide an overview of instruments measuring patient safety culture in a hospital setting. Methods: The study has a character of a narrative literature review. The search was performed in the scientific databases Scopus, ProQuest, and PubMed in January 2021. The search produced a total of 1,767 studies and was limited to language (English). The search and the retrieval process reflected PRISMA’s recommendations. The content analysis method was used in the data synthesis. Results: We identified 24 tools for assessing the patient safety culture in a hospital setting, of which seven were developed for specific workplaces; others are considered general. Eighteen tools might be utilized by all healthcare professionals within the hospital setting and only three were designated explicitly for nurses. The most commonly used instruments were the Hospital Survey on Patient Culture and the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire. Conclusion: Assessing a patient safety culture is considered one of the strategies for improving patient safety while increasing care quality. An appropriate tool’s choice depends on the target population, the instrument’s validity and reliability, and other aspects. Awareness of the various assessment tools can help hospitals choose the one that best suits their circumstances.

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Pharmacy Patient Safety: Attitudes of pharmacy personnel to Patient Safety Culture in a tertiary hospital in Bayelsa State, Nigeria

Asian Pacific Journal of Health Sciences ◽

10.21276/apjhs.2015.2.2.6 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 25

Author(s):

P.A. Owonaro ◽

K.E. Eneyi ◽

J.F. Eniojukan

Keyword(s):

Patient Safety ◽

Safety Culture ◽

Patient Safety Culture ◽

Tertiary Hospital ◽

Safety Attitudes

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Assessment of patient safety culture during COVID-19: a cross-sectional study in a tertiary a-level hospital in China

The TQM Journal ◽

10.1108/tqm-01-2021-0024 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Chih-Hsuan Huang ◽

Ying Wang ◽

Hsin-Hung Wu ◽

Lee Yii-Ching

Keyword(s):

Patient Safety ◽

Working Conditions ◽

Emotional Exhaustion ◽

Safety Culture ◽

Team Building ◽

Reliability And Validity ◽

Patient Safety Culture ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Content Type ◽

Safety Attitudes

PurposeThe aims of this study are to (1) evaluate physicians and nurses' perspectives on patient safety culture amid the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) integrate the emotional exhaustion of physicians and nurses into an evaluation of patient safety culture to provide insights into appropriate implications for medical care.Design/methodology/approachPatient safety culture was assessed with the Chinese version of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to validate the structure of the data (i.e. reliability and validity), and Pearson's correlation analysis was performed to identify relationships between safety-related dimensions.FindingsSafety climate was strongly associated with working conditions and teamwork climate. In addition, working conditions was highly correlated with perceptions of management and job satisfaction, respectively. It is worth noting that the stress and emotional exhaustion of the physicians and nurses during this epidemic were high and needed attention.Practical implicationsFor healthcare managers and practitioners, team-building activities, power of public opinions, IoT-focused service, and Employee Assistance Programs are important implications for inspiring the patient safety-oriented culture during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic.Originality/valueThis paper considers the role of emotional state into patient safety instrument, a much less understood but equally important dimension in the field of patient safety.

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Patient safety culture in burn care units from the perspectives of healthcare providers: across-sectional study

Journal of Burn Care & Research ◽

10.1093/jbcr/irab208 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Maryam Moghimian ◽

Sedigheh Farzi ◽

Kolsoum Farzi ◽

Mohammad Javad Tarrahi ◽

Hossein Ghasemi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Patient Safety ◽

Safety Culture ◽

Care Delivery ◽

Quality Care ◽

Healthcare Providers ◽

Patient Safety Culture ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Burn Care ◽

Healthcare Settings ◽

Collection Data

Abstract Creating a positive patient safety culture is a key step in the improvement of patient safety in healthcare settings. PSC is a set of shared attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions about PS among healthcare providers. This study aimed to assess PSC in burn care units from the perspectives of healthcare providers. This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in 2020 in the units of a specialty burn center. Participants were 213 healthcare providers recruited to the study through a census. A demographic questionnaire and the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture were used for data collection. Data were managed using the SPSS16 software and were summarized using the measures of descriptive statistics. The mean of positive responses to PSC items was 51.22%, denoting a moderate-level PSC. The lowest and the highest dimensional mean scores were related to the no punitive response to error dimension (mean: 12.36%) and the teamwork within departments dimension (mean: 73.25%), respectively. Almost half of the participants (49.3%) reported acceptable PS level in their workplace and 69.5% of them had not reported any error during the past twelve months before the study. Given the great vulnerability of patients with burn injuries in clinical settings, improving PSC, particularly in the no punitive response to error dimension, is essential to encourage healthcare providers for reporting their errors and thereby, to enhance PS. For quality care delivery, healthcare providers in burn care units need a safe workplace, adequate managerial support, a blame-free PSC, and an incentive error reporting system to readily report their errors.

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Patient safety culture in Slovenian out-of-hours primary care clinics

Slovenian Journal of Public Health ◽

10.1515/sjph-2017-0028 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 56 (4) ◽

pp. 203-210 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Zalika Klemenc-Ketiš ◽

Ellen Tveter Deilkås ◽

Dag Hofoss ◽

Gunnar Tschudi Bondevik

Keyword(s):

Patient Safety ◽

Safety Culture ◽

Safety Climate ◽

International Study ◽

Patient Safety Culture ◽

Cross Sectional Study ◽

Full Time ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Out Of Hours ◽

Safety Attitudes

Abstract Introduction Patient safety culture is a concept which describes how leader and staff interaction, attitudes, routines and practices protect patients from adverse events in healthcare. We aimed to investigate patient safety culture in Slovenian out-of-hours health care (OOHC) clinics, and determine the possible factors that might be associated with it. Methods This was a cross-sectional study, which took place in Slovenian OOHC, as part of the international study entitled Patient Safety Culture in European Out-of-Hours Services (SAFE-EUR-OOH). All the OOHC clinics in Slovenia (N=60) were invited to participate, and 37 agreed to do so; 438 employees from these clinics were invited to participate. We used the Slovenian version of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire – an ambulatory version (SAQAV) to measure the climate of safety. Results Out of 438 invited participants, 250 answered the questionnaire (57.1% response rate). The mean overall score ± standard deviation of the SAQ was 56.6±16.0 points, of Perceptions of Management 53.6±19.6 points, of Job Satisfaction 48.5±18.3 points, of Safety Climate 59.1±22.1 points, of Teamwork Climate 72.7±16.6, and of Communication 51.5±23.4 points. Employees working in the Ravne na Koroškem region, employees with variable work shifts, and those with full-time jobs scored significantly higher on the SAQ-AV. Conclusion The safety culture in Slovenian OOHC clinics needs improvement. The variations in the safety culture factor scores in Slovenian OOHC clinics point to the need to eliminate variations and improve working conditions in Slovenian OOHC clinics.

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