Patient Safety Culture Assessment of a Hospital in Tehran: A Case Study

Evaluating a hospital's patient safety culture (PSC) increases awareness of the various aspects of patient safety. Due to the critical role of PSC, the current study was designed and conducted to assess the level of PSC from the perspective of medical staff. A descriptive-analytical study was conducted in one of Tehran's hospitals in 2017. A total of 122 participants were selected as the research population from hospital clinical staff using stratified random sampling. The data collection method was a standard HSOPS questionnaire. The data were analyzed descriptively and analytically using SPSS19 software, including the T-test, analysis of variance, and Friedman test. The most studied populations were women (80.33%), and nursing staff (54.92%), the average serving years in hospital was (45/1±42/9).The mean score for PSC was 3.41, significantly higher than the national average. Among the various aspects of PSC, the highest and lowest scores were for "managers' expectations and actions regarding patient safety" and "openness of communication channels," respectively.According to the findings, the PSC among hospital staff is generally positive and high, which may be a result of the hospital's efforts to establish accreditation standards in the hospital. It is recommended that the hospital management team place a premium on open communication channels, teamwork, organizational learning, information exchange and transmission, communication and error feedback for all medical staff. Additionally, for effective learning, it is recommended to clearly define the process of encouraging and punishing to motivate, continuously assess patient safety status, provide timely feedback on results.