[Attitudes of health care providers toward teamwork, safety climate and knowledge transfer through team collaboration in an educational medical center in Tehran 2009]

According to importance of occupational health for health care providers and patient safety in hospitals, implementation of safety culture with teamwork is an acceptable principle .This study aims to assess attitude of health care providers toward teamwork, safety climate and knowledge transfer through team collaboration at an educational medical center in 2009. This was a descriptive study. All 225 resident physicians, nurses and other paramedics of an educational hospital of Tehran participated in the study. The tool for data collection was the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire [SAQ]. Content validity and reliability of the questionnaire was assessed and confirmed. Data was analyzed using SPSS 16 and Chi square test. The results demonstrated that 59% of nurses, 52% of physicians and 58%of paramedics believed that tasks are performing by teamwork. 30% of nurses, 21% of physicians and 39% of paramedics had a sense of safety in workplace. 78% of nurses, 55% of physicians and 73% of other paramedics believed that knowledge could transfer through team collaboration. Among demographic characteristics there were significant relationship between attitude of health care providers on teamwork with their marital status [p=0.001]; attitude of health care providers on safety climate with their work experience [p=0.04]; attitude of health care providers on knowledge transfer trough teamwork with organizational position [p=0.016]. Attitude assessment of health care providers toward teamwork, safety climate and patients' or health care providers' safety is necessary to modify and improve the current deficits and to achieve to the culture of learning from errors. Managers can have an appropriate guide to establish safety culture with this sort of attitude assessments.

[Patients' safety culture status among educational hospitals of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in 2011]

Patients' safety culture is one of the key elements to safety promotion and improvement of the quality of patient care. Few studies have been conducted about patients' safety culture in the country. Here, patients' safety culture status among educational hospitals of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences was studied using Texas university SAQ questionnaire. In a cross sectional study in 2011, four out of nine hospitals affiliated with Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences were chosen from North, East and West of Tehran metropolitan, based on their magnitude and geographical dispersion. Two of these hospitals were big [more than 300 beds], and two were small [less than 300 beds]. The study population consisted of pharmacists, medical assistants, nurses, operating room technicians, nutrition experts, and practitioners in radiology and laboratory departments. In this study data collection tool was a validated and reliable [r=0.88] Farsi translated version of Texas university questionnaire [SAQ], focusing on eight areas of patients' safety culture. 58% of samples were nurses with more than two year of experience. In this study, patients' safety culture was in the moderate level among studied hospitals and no significant difference was observed between them. However, a significant difference was seen among hospitals, in terms of management and expectations of safety improvement along with staffs concerns [p<0.009]. A significant difference was also seen in total score of safety culture and five areas of safety culture, based on organizational position of the respondents [p<0.05]. The strongest dimension of patients' safety culture in studied hospitals was team work area with 74% positive responses. Patients' safety culture in the target hospitals was in the middle level. Hence, interventions for cultural improvement considering hospital characteristics are required.

Attitudes of health caregivers on teamwork and safety climate in an educational medical center

To study the attitudes of health caregivers on teamwork and safety climate in an educational Medical Center in Tehran Iran. In this descriptive study, 225 residents physician, nurses and other paramedics working for at least one month in the studied hospital participated. Data collection tool was Safety Attitudes Questionnaire [SAQ] which consisted of three sections: provider group characteristics, 14 teamwork questions, and 13 safety climate questions. Validity [content] and reliability [test-retest] of the questionnaire were confirmed and chi square test was used for data analysis. The results indicated that from 225 subjects, 39.11% were male and 60.89% were female, with 70.23% being married and 26.66% being single. There was not a significant relationship between caregivers' attitudes on teamwork and safety climate with provider group characteristics [gender, experience in organization, marital status, and organizational position]. By comparing teamwork and safety climate points, the status of teamwork in the studied hospital was better than that of safety climate and the caregivers were more satisfied with status of teamwork in the hospital. Achievement of patient safety depends on teamwork. Safety climate also leads to an appropriate feedback and culture of learning from errors. Therefore, further studies on safety climate related factors, for continuous improvement in patient safety is recommended