Workforce Perceptions of Hospital Safety Culture: Case of Iran Teaching Hospitals

Background: One of the main determinants of safety and quality of care in hospitals is institutionalization of safety culture among their employees. This study aimed to assesses patient safety culture in Iran teaching hospitals.

Methods: Four Iran provinces were selected purposefully, one hospital from each was entered the study randomly, and proportional with hospital size, 500 employees were selected. The data were collected using standard questionnaire of Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSPSC) and analyzed using Excel and SPSS 22.

Results: Patient safety dimensions with highest positive score were organizational learning and continuous improvement (77%), management support for patient safety (68%) and supervisor/manager expectations and actions promoting patient safety (61%) and dimensions with the lowest patient safety score were non-punitive response to error (20%), communication openness (28%), frequency of events reported (32%), staffing (37%), teamwork across and within hospital units (71%). Although 48% of the participants have not reported any event during 12 past months, but 64.6% scored patient safety excellent/ very good.

Conclusions: There are punishment and blame culture, non-openness in communication channels and low reporting of events in Iran hospitals. It is necessary for hospital management to design error and accident reporting system and reinforce non-punitive culture to increase error reporting.