Patient safety culture status in teaching hospitals: A case of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

Being safe from dangers in receiving the healthcare services is one of the most obvious human rights however without creating the patient safety culture in health and treatment facilities, no stable development will take place in patient care. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 413 nurses working in 9 teaching hospitals. The questionnaire designed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality was utilized to measure 12 aspects creating the patient safety culture. For analyzing data; Chi-square, t-test, ANOVA and Pearson correlation were used. Among the 12-fold dimensions of the patient safety culture, overall perception of patient safety, organizational learning-continuous improvement, team work within the units, communication openness, feedback about safety errors, non-punitive responses to errors, hospital administrator's support of patient safety, team work among the hospital units and frequency of event reporting were evaluated as inappropriate. In addition, the dimensions manager expectations and actions promoting safety and staffing were evaluated as average (mean scores=3 and 3.1). The dimension of hospital handoffs and transitions was measured as appropriate (mean score=3.7). Overall, the findings depicted the inappropriate status of the patient safety culture in all under studied hospitals. In conclusion, lack of appropriate and safe treatment operations in the hospitals, lack of serious protection of the superior managers, lack of error reporting because of the fear from punitive responses and not using the errors as the sources of learning caused inappropriate status of the patient safety culture, so there is an intense necessity for creating the appropriate patient safety culture in the studied hospitals.