Patient safety culture in primary health care: analysis by professional categories

Abstract

Objective: To compare the patient safety culture among the professional categories working in Primary Health Care. Method: A cross-sectional study carried out between April and May 2017 in a municipality in south Brazil, with 144 workers who answered the instrument “Research on Patient Safety Culture for Primary Care”. In addition to the descriptive analysis, the Kruskal-Wal-lis test was used to compare the patient safety culture among the professional categories followed by the post hoc Dunn multiple comparisons test. Results: The highest and lowest overall scores of positive responses to the patient’s safety culture were respectively for nurses (67.70%) and community health agents (46.73%). In the comparative analyses, the physicians, community health agents, and dentists had significant differences in comparison to the other categories, tending toward a less positive culture. Conclusion: Differences were observed in the patient safety culture among professional categories investigated.