Patient safety culture measurement in general practice. Clinimetric properties of 'SCOPE'

BMC Family Practice

Research Article

Theo JM Verheij¹  Marijke M Kuyvenhoven¹  Rosalinde C van de Vooren¹  Dorien LM Zwart²  Maaike Langelaan³  Cordula Wagner⁴  Cor J Kalkman⁵ 

[1]Department of General Practice, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands

[2]Department of General Practice, Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands

[3]Patient Safety Center, University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands

[4]Nivel, Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research, Utrecht, The Netherlands

[5]Nivel, Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research, Utrecht, The Netherlands

[6]EMGO+ Institute, Department of Public and Occupational Health, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

[7]Patient Safety Center, University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands

关键词: Patient Safety;    Communication Openness;    Safety Culture;    Incident Reporting;    Improve Patient Safety;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2296-12-117

 received in 2011-03-09, accepted in 2011-11-01,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundA supportive patient safety culture is considered to be an essential condition for improving patient safety. Assessing the current safety culture in general practice may be a first step to target improvements. To that end, we studied internal consistency and construct validity of a safety culture questionnaire for general practice (SCOPE) which was derived from a comparable questionnaire for hospitals (Dutch-HSOPS).MethodsThe survey was conducted among caregivers of Dutch general practice as part of an ongoing quality accreditation process using a 46 item questionnaire. We conducted factor analyses and studied validity by calculating correlations between the subscales and testing the hypothesis that respondents' patient safety grade of their practices correlated with their scores on the questionnaire.ResultsOf 72 practices 294 respondents completed the questionnaire. Eight factors were identified concerning handover and teamwork, support and fellowship, communication openness, feedback and learning from error, intention to report events, adequate procedures and staffing, overall perceptions of patient safety and expectations and actions of managers. Cronbach's alpha of the factors rated between 0.64 and 0.85. The subscales intercorrelated moderately, except for the factor about intention to report events. Respondents who graded patient safety highly scored significantly higher on the questionnaire than those who did not.ConclusionsThe SCOPE questionnaire seems an appropriate instrument to assess patient safety culture in general practice. The clinimetric properties of the SCOPE are promising, but future research should confirm the factor structure and construct of the SCOPE and delineate its responsiveness to changes in safety culture over time.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Zwart et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011