A safety culture assessment by mixed methods at a public maternity and infant hospital in China

Abstract

ObjectiveTo assess safety culture at a public maternity hospital in Shanghai, China, using a sequential mixed methods approach. The study was part of a bigger study looking at the application of the mixed methods approach to assess safety culture in health care in different organizations and countries.MethodologyA mixed methods approach was utilized by first distributing the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire measuring six safety culture dimensions and five independent items to all hospital staff (n=1482) working in 18 departments at a single hospital. Afterward, semistructured interviews were conducted using convenience sampling, where 48 hospital staff from nine departments at the same hospital were individually interviewed.ResultsThe survey received a response rate of 96%. The survey findings show significant differences between the hospital departments in almost all safety culture dimensions and independent items. Similarly, the interview findings revealed that there were different, competing priorities between departments perceived to result in a reduced quality of collaboration and bottlenecks in care delivery. Another major finding was that staff who worked more hours per week would perceive working conditions significantly more negatively. Issues related to working conditions were also the most common concerns discussed in the interviews, especially the issue on high workload. High workload was also reflected in the fact that 91.45% of survey respondents reported that they worked 40 hours or longer per week. Finally, interview findings complemented survey findings, thus providing a more complete and accurate picture of safety culture.ConclusionHospital leaders need to prioritize interventions focused on improving the quality of cross-department collaboration and reducing workload. A mixed methods assessment of safety culture provides more meaningful, targeted results, enabling leaders to prioritize and tailor improvement efforts to increase the impact of an intervention.

Safety-Culture Exploration in Taiwan’s Metal Industries: Identifying the Workers’ Background Influence on Safety Climate

“…Table 6 shows the safety-climate level based on the final safety-climate model. Since the mean score for safety perception, safety communication and safety management is 4.22, 3.97 and 4.23, respectively, it shows a good level of safety climate based on similar safety-climate studies [5,23,32,34,35]. Furthermore, more attention should be directed to this safety communication because of its lower score compared to the other two factors.…”

“…The five-point Likert scale is the most-common measuring scale that is used in safety-climate questionnaires [5,23,32]. An average score that is higher than 3 (a neutral response) is considered as a positive or good safety climate [34]. A five-point Likert scale was suggested to have better data quality, reliability and discriminant validity compared to a four-point-type Likert scale [35].…”

Patient safety culture in home care service

“…The safety culture in health services recognizes the inevitability of error and the incorporation of a non-punitive system for reporting and analyzing adverse events, replacing guilt and punishment with the opportunity to learn from failures and to improve healthcare (4) . Further, the patient safety culture in care environments is associated with reduced risk of incidents (1,(5)(6) .…”

“…An assessment of patient safety culture is the first step towards its implementation (7) in order to improve care (6) and to support service management through its monitoring, thus influencing organizational changes (3) . Such assessment initially only occurred in the hospital environment (1,(8)(9) , but in recent years its use has been increasing in long-term care facilities (8,10) , elderly homes (9) , and primary attention (1) , as it is understood that risks are present in all healthcare spheres (11) .…”

Avaliação do clima de segurança em um hospital público especializado em cardiologia no Município do Rio de Janeiro

“…Brasil) envolvendo profissionais da saúde, onde a média de idade dos participantes foi 40 anos.Quanto ao vínculo trabalhista, o estatutário foi a maioria (64,09%), seguido de contrato (27,63%). Este achado é atribuído à natureza jurídica da instituiçãopública, federal e de ensino, na qual o principal vínculo é de servidor público efetivo Listyowardojo et al (2017). verificaram que 91,45% dos participantes trabalhavam 40h ou mais por semana, encontrando correlação negativa para o domínio condições de trabalho (SAQ), fato este atribuído ao número de horas de trabalho semanal.…”