Use of patient safety culture instruments in operating rooms: A systematic literature review

Abstract

Objective: To identify and qualitatively describe, in a literature review, how the instruments were used to evaluate patient safety culture in the operating rooms of published studies.

Methods: Systematic searches of the literature were conducted using the major database including MEDLINE, EMbase, The Cochrane Library, and four Chinese databases including Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), Wanfang Data, Chinese Scientific Journal Database (VIP), and Chinese Journals Full-text Database (CNKI) for studies published up to March 2016. We summarized and analyzed the country scope, the instrument utilized in the study, the year when the instrument was used, and fields of operating rooms. Study populations, study settings, and the time span between baseline and follow-up phase were evaluated according to the study design.

Results: We identified 1025 references, of which 99 were obtained for full-text assessment; 47 of these studies were deemed relevant and included in the literature review. Most of the studies were from the USA. The most commonly used patient safety culture instrument was Safety Attitude Questionnaire. All identified instruments were used after 2002 and across many fields. Most included studies on patient safety culture were conducted in teaching hospitals or university hospitals. The study population in the cross-sectional studies was much more than that in the before-after studies. The time span between baseline and follow-up phase of before-after studies were almost over three months.

Conclusion: Although patient safety culture is considered important in health care and patient safety, the number of studies in which patient safety culture has been estimated using the instruments in operating rooms, is fairly small.

Keywords: instruments; measurement; operating rooms; patient safety; safety culture.