Safety culture and safety attitudes of nurses in the National University Hospital

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Patient safety issues pose a great burden worldwide. However, there is still inadequate data on the burden of Patient Safety issues in the Philippines to specifically address institutional and national concerns through directed program, policies, and interventions. This current study aims to describe the safety culture and attitudes of nurses of the National University Hospital in Manila, Philippines.DESIGN: This study used non-experimental design that assessed the safety culture and safety attitudes of nurses from the general units of the National University Hospital (NUH) using two assessment tools the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (AHRQ-HSOPS) and the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire- Short Form (SAQ). Ethical approval was granted from both the university and the hospital ethics review boards. METHODS: Stratified random sampling was used to ensure representation of staff nurses and nurse administrators. A self-administered survey that included the two tools was translated to Filipino and administered to 200 nurses. Percent of positive responses were obtained to describe the safety culture and attitudes as prescribed by toolkits of AHRQ-HSOPS and SAQ.FINDINGS: The overall survey response rate yielded 86.77%. Nurses from the National University Hospital displayed both positive Safety Culture and Safety Attitudes based on AHRQ-HSOPS and SAQ. Dimensions that garnered the highest positive perceptions in Safety Culture were Organizational Learning and Teamwork while the lowest were Hospital Handoffs and Non-Punitive Response to Error. On the other hand, dimensions on safety Awareness that received the highest positive perceptions were Teamwork and Safety Climate while the lowest was Stress Recognition. Perceptions of nurses also varied significantly across ranks in position titles and work settings. CONCLUSIONS: There are identifiable dimensions that can be improved in both Safety Culture and Safety Attitude that can have a positive impact on nurses and potentially impact nurse-patient and hospital-sensitive outcomes through hospital-wide improvement programs.