Safety Culture in the Maternity Units: a census survey using the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire

Abstract

BackgroundPatient safety has been a priority for many societies and health care systems in the last decades. Identification of preventable risks and aversion of potentially unsafe situations and fatal complications in maternity units is life saving. The explicit need to focus on quality of care underpins the aim of the study to initially evaluate the safety culture and teamwork climate in the public Maternity Units of the 5 Regional Hospitals in Cyprus as measured by a validated safety attitudes tool.MethodsData were collected from 140 midwives working in the public sector all over Cyprus by the Greek Version of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire-Labor version.ResultsOne hundred and six (75.71%) registered midwives completed the questionnaire fully. The median of total work experience as a registered midwife was 3 years (IQR: 2-18.25); whereas the median of total working experience in the nursing and maternity units was 5 years (IQR: 2-21.75). Experienced midwives rated the following domains higher: team work, safety climate, job satisfaction and working conditions as opposed to the midwives with less experience. Additionally those with a longer working life in the current maternity units rated these domains higher: safety climate, job satisfaction and working conditions as opposed to the less experienced midwives.ConclusionsThe high mean total score on team work and safety climate in the more experienced group of midwives is a predominant finding for the maternity units of Cyprus. In Cyprus where facilities are small in size and midwives know each other, share more responsibility towards patient safety. It could be suggested that younger midwives need more support and teamwork practice to enhance the safety and teamwork climate towards self-confidence.

Attitude toward Safety among Staffs in the Iranian Maternity Care Units of Public Hospitals with High Maternal Death Rate, 2015-2016

“…The score of safety climate which predicted error-reporting and also effective feedback system was low in this study which was in agreement with the findings of relevant studies [14]- [19]. In such a situation, staffs will be more prone to blaming each other when responding to adverse events and less likely to learn from error [19]. As, national reports and studies have emphasized that the current feedback system has not been effective for developing and maintenance of a high quality and safe maternity care [8] [9] [19].…”

“…The score of safety climate which predicted error-reporting and also effective feedback system was low in this study which was in agreement with the findings of relevant studies [14]- [19]. In such a situation, staffs will be more prone to blaming each other when responding to adverse events and less likely to learn from error [19].…”

“…In such a situation, staffs will be more prone to blaming each other when responding to adverse events and less likely to learn from error [19]. As, national reports and studies have emphasized that the current feedback system has not been effective for developing and maintenance of a high quality and safe maternity care [8] [9] [19]. It seems that Iranian maternity care system is mostly focused on "risk culture" approach than "safety culture" and following structure and strategies has not been changed based on supportive proactive approach.…”

Perception of Safety Attitude and Priority and Progress of Safe Practices of Nurses in Emergency Room

“…In one similar study [24] conducted on a maternity unit, overall average of maternity unit nurses' attitude toward patient safety was 3.38 points , maternity ward nurse, job satisfaction being the highest and attitudes to stress recognition being the lowest. In addition, in a study [12] conducted on one hospital unit, nurses' attitude toward patient safety was scored 2.89 points, the attitude of the working environment being the highest score and stress recognition being the lowest score, and these results were different from this study.…”

Factors influencing teamwork and collaboration within a tertiary medical center

“…Various organizational research articles have provided the basis for the theoretical framework used to develop the study hypotheses [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] . The exogenous variables in this study are Effective Communication (EC), Safety Culture (SC), Job Satisfaction (JS), Work Pressure (PR), and Work Climate (WC).…”