Background: To date, there has been no universal and validated tool for measuring safety culture in Korea. The Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC), version 2.0 was released by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in 2019, but it had not yet been translated and assessed for use in Korea. The aim of this study was to assess the content validity and other psychometric properties of the Korean-language version of the HSOPSC 2.0.
Methods: Instrument adaptation was performed using a committee-based translation, cognitive interviews, and expert panel reviews. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted on data obtained through an online survey from 526 registered nurses who worked on medical-surgical units in three teaching hospitals in South Korea.
Results: One item was dropped during the translation and adaption phase of the study as being a poor fit for the Korean healthcare context, resulting in excellent content validity. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the factorial structure of the K-HSOPSC 2.0. Correlations with an overall measure of patient safety provided further evidence of construct validity. Additionally, in comparing the results of this current study to those from U.S. research using the HSOPSC 2.0, it was found that Korean nurses assigned less positive scores to all dimensions of patient safety culture.
Conclusion: Our findings provide evidence of the content validity, reliability, and construct validity of the K-HOSPSC 2.0 for measuring patient safety culture in South Korean hospitals. Hospital administrators can use this tool to assess safety culture and identify areas for improvement to enhance patient safety and quality of care.
Keywords: Korea; Psychometric; Reliability; Safety culture; Validity.