Hospital patient safety culture in selected Slovak hospitals: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Introduction: Patient safety is one of the most serious and currently very relevant global health problems. In addition to indicators of quality of nursing care, it is important to consider safety culture as one of the factors in the effort to ensure patient safety. Aim: To assess nurses’ perception of hospital patient safety culture. Methods: Empirical data was collected using the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC). The research sample consisted of 196 nurses working in six Slovak hospitals. The relationships between variables were tested by Spearman’s rho. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to determine predictors of the degree of patient safety. Results: The highest number of positive responses was observed in the department‘s teamwork domain (63.1%), feedback and communication (61.2%), education and continuous improvement (55.3%). A significant negative predictor of the perception of patient safety was the higher number of adverse events reported in the last year (–0.226; 0.002), and the higher number of hours worked per week (–0.215; 0.002). Significant positive predictors of the degree of patient safety were the following hospital culture of patient safety dimensions: teamwork within units (0.165; 0.048), management support for patient safety (0.172; 0.045), and handoffs and transitions (0.172; 0.049). Conclusions: The level of patient safety culture underlines the quality and safety of care provided by health care providers. The Patient Safety Culture Assessment serves to identify areas for improvement, as well as to raise safety awareness among professionals. Our study can therefore be considered partial and can form a starting point for the further implementation of quantitative and qualitative research on a larger sample of respondents.