Patient safety culture in a tertiary care hospital in Makkah, Saudi Arabia, a cross-sectional study.

backgroundPatient safety remains an area of global concern, and patient safety culture among healthcare staff is one of its most important determinants. Saudi Arabia is investing much effort in enhancing patient safety. Assessment of patient safety culture is enlightening about the impact of such efforts and invaluable in informing policy makers about future directions. This study aimed to assess patient safety culture in King Abdullah Medical City (KAMC), a tertiary referral center in Makkah, Saudi Arabia.

methodsIn this cross-sectional study the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC) version 2.0 was distributed electronically to all staff of KAMC. The HSOPSC version 2.0 Data Entry and Analysis Tool was used to compare results obtained from KAMC to those obtained from global data. Additional analyses were performed on SPSS to explore the presence of associations between responses and participant characteristics.

resultsA total of 350 participants completed the questionnaire, 58.6% of whom were nurses. A comparison of the composite measure of all 10 domains of the HSOPSC showed 62% positive responses at KAMC versus 70% in the global database. This difference was statistically significant, with a chi-square of 10.64 and a p value of 0.001. The percentages of positive responses from the KAMC data exceeded those from the global data in the "Organizational learning and continuous improvement" and the "Communication about error" domains (p = 0.002 and 0.003, respectively).

conclusionAlthough safety culture seems to score lower at KAMC than globally, accelerated improvement in the future is expected based on improvement trends in the literature and the national efforts focused on patient safety.