Abstract
Patient safety culture plays an important role in securing patient safety at hospitals. We investigated the applicability of the Japanese version of the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPS) developed by the US Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality, and compared results of surveys in the United States and Japan. The HSOPS includes 12 domains (42 questions) on patient safety culture and 2 questions regarding the overall evaluation of patient safety culture at a hospital.
9,867 healthcare staff of 13 acute care hospitals participated in this survey. Effective responses were received from 6,399 respondents (64.9%).
The proportions of respondents who affirmatively evaluated patient safety culture were different among professions, number of hospital beds and hospitals. “Teamwork within department” (70.3%) and “Frequency of the event report” (68.1%) were among the most highly evaluated domains. Physicians and nurses evaluated patient safety culture more affirmatively than office staff. The overall evaluation showed a high correlation with 5 domains (correlation coefficient 0.8 or more) and relatively high correlation with 4 domains (correlation coefficient 0.6-0.8).
The domains were classified into (1) high evaluation in most hospitals with low coefficient of variation (CV), (2) low evaluation in most hospitals with high CV, and (3) low evaluation in most hospitals with low CV.
In comparison Japanese healthcare workers evaluated patient safety culture lower than US healthcare workers.
The results of this study suggest that the Japanese HSOPS can be introduced in Japanese acute care hospitals, and can be used as a tool to measure patient safety.
