Patient safety culture from a nursing point of view in a broader context

Abstract

The research aimed to demonstrate a broader context in the assessment of patient safety culture and its subsequent application to the selected sample of nurses. Foreign research shows that there is a relationship between the evaluation of particular patient safety culture dimensions and socio-demographic data. It was found that between the dependent (overall perception of patient safety and frequency of events reported) and independent variables of patient safety culture dimensions it is possible to ratify the statistically significant relationship. To reveal the predicted context, the standardized questionnaire of Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) was used and also validated in the Czech language. 207 respondents participated in the research study. The whole questionnaire was evaluated for reliability using Cronbach α with a score of 0.877. The composite score required to determine the particular dimensions was first calculated using AHRQ’s methodological procedures. Within our research, we have demonstrated by computed dimensions the correlation between socio-demographic data (i.e., length of the practice in the hospital, length of practice in the current hospital work area/unit and length of practice in the current profession or specialist field) and some dimensions of patient safety culture. The results showed that, in proportion to the length of practice, the level in some dimensions also increased. Through the multidimensional linear regression it was confirmed that dependent variables in dimensions of patient safety culture (overall perception of patient safety and frequency of events reported) are significantly associated with other independent variables of dimensions. The quality of the model used was assessed by determination coefficient, which confirmed this relationship as causative. The results are beneficial to the hospital management from the perspective of targeted activities leading to the improvement of overall perception of patient safety and the frequency of events reported.