Patient safety climate profiles across time: Strength and level of safety climate associated with a quality improvement program in Switzerland—A cross-sectional survey study

Abstract

Safety Climate has been acknowledged as an unspecific factor influencing patient safety. However, studies rarely provide in-depth analysis of climate data. As a helpful approach, the concept of “climate strength” has been proposed. In the present study we tested the hypotheses that even if safety climate remains stable on mean-level across time, differences might be evident in strength or shape. The data of two hospitals participating in a large national quality improvement program were analysed for differences in climate profiles at two measurement occasions. We analysed differences on mean-level, differences in percent problematic response, agreement within groups, and frequency histograms in two large hospitals in Switzerland at two measurement occasions (2013 and 2015) applying the Safety Climate Survey. In total, survey responses of 1193 individuals were included in the analyses. Overall, small but significant differences on mean-level of safety climate emerged for some subgroups. Also, although agreement was strong at both time-points within groups, tendencies of divergence or consensus were present in both hospitals. Depending on subgroup and analyses chosen, differences were more or less pronounced. The present study illustrated that taking several measures into account and describing safety climate from different perspectives is necessary in order to fully understand differences and trends within groups and to develop interventions addressing the needs of different groups more precisely.

Speak up-related climate and its association with healthcare workers’ speaking up and withholding voice behaviours: a cross-sectional survey in Switzerland

“… 24 The value of r wg —sometimes called ‘climate strength’—for patient safety climate research has recently been emphasised. 25 26 r wg(j) values between 0.00 and 0.30 indicate lack of agreement, between 0.31 and 0.50 weak agreement, between 0.51 and 0.70 moderate agreement, between 0.71 and 0.90 strong agreement or very strong agreement (values>0.90). 27 Due to the hierarchical structure of data (individuals within hospitals), we used multilevel regression modelling.…”

Psychometric properties of the Persian language person-centered climate questionnaire – Patient version (PCQ-P)

“…In their study, the highest scores were given to the item ‘I feel safe’ in the factor ‘safety climate’. It should be mentioned that the patient's safety is a major component of quality health care and is of priority to every health care system aiming for quality improvement ( Tourani et al., 2016 ; Mascherek and Schwappach, 2017 ). In the present study, item 9 (a place that is neat and clean) obtained the lowest score in the factor of safety climate which is indicative of the low quality of this variable in the hospitals.…”

Assessment of the safety climate in outpatient diagnostic services: Development and psychometric evaluation of a questionnaire

“…Further, the comparison of rWG across services allows not only the comparison of safety climate levels, but also of safety climate strength [29,31]. Indeed, the rWG as a measure of inter-rater-agreement shows to what extent the perception of a certain safety climate level, as typically measured by the mean, is strongly present in a service.…”