Patient Safety Culture in Burn Care Units from the Perspectives of Healthcare Providers: A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Creating a positive patient safety culture is a key step in the improvement of patient safety in healthcare settings. Patient safety culture (PSC) is a set of shared attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions about patient safety (PS) among healthcare providers. This study aimed to assess PSC in burn care units from the perspectives of healthcare providers. This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in 2020 in the units of a specialty burn center. Participants were 213 healthcare providers recruited to the study through a census. A demographic questionnaire and the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture were used for data collection. Data were managed using the SPSS16 software and were summarized using the measures of descriptive statistics. The mean of positive responses to PSC items was 51.22%, denoting a moderate-level PSC. The lowest and the highest dimensional mean scores were related to the no punitive response to error dimension (mean: 12.36%) and the teamwork within departments dimension (mean: 73.25%), respectively. Almost half of the participants (49.3%) reported acceptable PS level in their workplace and 69.5% of them had not reported any error during the past 12 months before the study. Given the great vulnerability of patients with burn injuries in clinical settings, improving PSC, particularly in the no punitive response to error dimension, is essential to encourage healthcare providers for reporting their errors and thereby, to enhance PS. For quality care delivery, healthcare providers in burn care units need a safe workplace, adequate managerial support, a blame-free PSC, and an incentive error reporting system to readily report their errors.