Patient safety culture within a university hospital: feasibility trial

Abstract

BACKGROUND:Developing a patient safety culture is an evolving process for organizations. An accepted tool to assess the patient safety culture is the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC). Recently, the HSOPSC was translated into German. It was the primary aim of this short report to assess the reliability of the German HSOPSC within a university hospital in Austria.FINDINGS:The German version of the survey was adjusted to local circumstances. Finally, the survey contained 48 questions using the five-point Likert response scale of agreement. The online survey was sent out to 6317 employees. A total of 415 employees took part in the online survey (6.6%). The majority (n=299, 72.0%) had been employees without an executive function. 70 (16.9%) physician, 229 (55.2%) nurses, 47 (11.3%) medical technical assistants and 69 (16.6%) administrative employees answered to the survey. The dimension that received the highest positive score was "manager expectations and actions promoting safety" (3.90+/-0.84 SD). Within outcome measures "patient safety in general" showed the lowest score (2.34+/-0.71 SD).CONCLUSION:Reliability for the survey according to Cronbach's alpha coefficient was considered good. The German version of the HSOPSC can be a useful instrument within Austrian hospitals to assess the patient safety culture. This particular survey can be used as a reference value for further patient safety climate surveys within the organization.