Patient safety culture and associated factors among health care workers in gamo gofa zone public hospitals, southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: In health care, the safety of patient is persistency hampered due to unsafe care or medical errors exposing to extra human and healthcare expenses. Improving and promoting patient safety culture in healthcare industry contributes to quality of patient care. Objective: The aim of this study is to assess patient safety culture and associated factors among health care workers in Gamo- Gofa zone public hospitals, Southern Ethiopia, 2018 Methods: Institution based cross-sectional quantitative study was conducted from March 19 to April 20 in three public hospitals in Gamo-Goffa zone. A total of 440 participants were selected by using simple random sampling. Self-administered data collection method was employed. The data was entered into epidemiological data version 3.1 and analyzed by using statistical package for social science version 23.0. Background characteristics was regressed on the overall perception of patient safety to determine score difference. Independent factors associated with overall perception of patient safety was determined using multiple linear regression analysis. Results; Among 440 health care workers, 401 completed the study with a response rate of 91.14%. From the respondents 217 (54.1%) were males and the mean age was 32.98 (± 8.55) years. Percent positive response for “staffing was 30.9%, non-punitive response to errors was 30.2%, communication openness was 43.1%, feedback and communication about error was 35.7%, frequency of events reported was 22.7% and handoffs and transitions was 29.4%”. In this study, 61.8% were never reported at least one event in the last 12 months. Respondents with different background characteristics were significantly influence the score of respondents on the patient safety culture. Communication openness (β =0.62, CI=0.543,0.69), feedback and communication about error (β =0.213, CI=0.140,0.286) and supervisor/manager expectations and actions promoting patient safety (β =0.131, CI=0.027,0.234) were the most predictive dimensions for the patient safety culture as measured by overall perception of patient safety. Conclusion and recommendation; There was a low status of patient safety culture among health care workers in Gamo- Gofa zone public hospitals. So, institutions have to improve a positive patient safety culture by considering and intervening on the prioritized factors that we had shown as important in this study.