Assessment of patient safety culture among healthcare providers at a teaching hospital in Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

A previous study in Cairo, Egypt highlighted the need to improve the patient safety culture among health-care providers at Ain Shams University hospitals. This descriptive cross-sectional study assessed healthcare providers' perceptions of patient safety culture within the organization and determined factors that played a role in patient safety culture. A representative sample of 510 physicians, nurses, pharmacists, technicians and labourers in different departments answered an Arabic version of the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality hospital survey for patient safety culture. The highest mean composite positive score among the 12 dimensions was for the organizational learning for continuous improvement (78.2%), followed by teamwork (58.1%). The lowest mean score was for the dimension of non-punitive response to error (19.5%). Patient safety culture still has many areas for improvement that need continuous evaluation and monitoring to attain a safe environment both for patients and health-care providers.