Prioritization of contributing factors on patient safety in secondary care: Analytical Hierarchy Process

Throughout the world, patient safety, which is preventing any accidental injury to the patient during providing the care, is one of the main concerns of all the health system professionals. The behavior and decisions of the health system staff, including those involved in managerial and clinical can highly influence patient safety.
Aim : The purpose of this study was to prioritize the factors affecting patient safety, based on the perceptions of secondary care personnel.
In this descriptive - analytical study, total 215 nurses, physician and managers of 22 Bahman and 15 Khordad hospitals affiliated by Gonabad University of Medical Sciences were selected through census sampling. Prioritization of the factors affecting patient safety was done by using a questionnaire based on Vincent and the hierarchical analysis. (α= 0.76). The data were analyzed using SPSS Software and Expert Choice 11.
58% of samples were female and 81% of the subjects were nurse, 12% were physician and the rest were administrative staff. The participants prioritized the factors influencing patient safety according to significant coefficient as task (0.399), team (0.220), individual (0.210) management & hospital (0.076), patient (0.059), environmental (0.035) personal characteristics, but there was a significant difference regarding the task, team, managerial and/or hospital, and environmental factors among the nurses, physicians, and managers (p˂0.001).
In general, the results of this study suggest that the personnel of health care system, including medical and administrative staff, link major factors affecting patient safety to obvious and close factors and also know that hidden factors are less involved. So in order to improve patient safety we need greater attention to the hidden factors.