Patient safety culture in Polish Primary Healthcare Centers

Abstract

Objective: To examine patient safety culture in primary healthcare centers in Poland.

Design: A cross-sectional survey conducted in 2017 using the questionnaire based on the 'Medical Office Survey on Patient Safety Culture' from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

Setting: Three hundred thirty-seventy primary healthcare centers in Poland.

Participants: Family physician practices in Poland selected from the population of 5400 using systematic random sampling. The response rate was 62%.

Intervention(s): None.

Main outcome measure(s): The survey includes 38 items that measured 10 dimensions of patient safety culture and questions referring to information exchange with other settings, quality issues and overall ratings on quality and safety. Mean percent positive scores on all items in each composite were calculated according to user's guide.

Results: Individual domains of patient safety culture had better scores among younger respondents and respondents with job seniority at their clinic under 10 years. Patient safety culture scores correlated with size and location (urban or rural) of studied centers, as well as with respondents' gender. The most highly ranked domains were: organizational learning (87.05% of positive scores), teamwork (84.91%), overall perception of patient safety and quality (84.77%) and leadership support for patient safety (84.30%) while the lowest ranked ones were: patient care tracking and follow-up (65.11%), work pressure and pace (57.77%). Other domains such as communication openness (80.96%), staff training (78.90%), office processes and standardization (71.92%) and communication about error (69.80%) ranked between.

Conclusions: Patient safety culture in primary healthcare centers in Poland was evaluated positively.

Keywords: patient safety; primary healthcare; quality in healthcare.