Objectives: Having a culture that supports and promotes safety efforts.The aim of this work was to study patient safety culture perception among physicians in different departments of Benha University Hospitals & finding out factors that play a role in this culture. Method: This cross sectional study included 361 physicians from different departments, who accepted to participate in this study from April to June 2013. The AHRQ hospital survey for patient safety culture was used. Results: The areas that need improvement were underreporting of adverse events, punitive environment, long working hours, communication breakdowns, & the hospital management system. Good pointsincluded teamwork within units, supervisor's encouragement & hospital transitions. The highest negative attitude was towards error reporting (57.4%). The mean % of overall score of the studied group regarding all patient safety culture dimensions was 49.19±6.5. Generally, patient safety culture dimensions scores & patient safety cultural levels were affected by participants’ variation in scientific degrees, job, & their specialty. Conclusion: patient safety perception is considerably low among Benha university hospitals’ physicians. Results showed a tendency for under reporting of errors whether harmful to patients or not. Recommendations: A program is to be applied including strategies for top managers, strategies for health care providers, & development of a good adverse event reporting system. |
