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Rational, aim, and objectives: A positive patient safety culture in maternity units is linked to higher quality of care and better outcomes for mothers. However, safety culture varies across maternity units. Analyses of variation in safety culture using statistical process control (SPC) methods may help provider units to learn from each other's performance. This study aims to measure patient safety culture across maternity units in Oman using SPC methods. Methods: The 36-item Safety Attitude Questionnaire (SAQ) was distributed to all doctors, nurses, and midwifes working in ten maternity care units in Oman's hospitals and analysed using SPC methods. The SAQ considers six domains: job satisfaction, perception of management, safety climate, stress recognition, teamwork, and work condition. Results: Of the 892 targeted participants, 735 (82%) questionnaires were returned. The overall percentage of positive safety responses in all hospitals ranged from 53% to 66%, but no hospital had the targeted response of above 75%. Job satisfaction had the highest safety score (4.10) while stress recognition was the lowest (3.17). SPC charts showed that the overall percentage of positive responses in three maternity units (H1, H7, and H10) was above and one (H4) was below the control limits that represent special cause variation that merits further investigation. Conclusion: Generally, the safety culture in maternity units in Oman is below target and suggests that considerable work is required to enhance safety culture. Several maternity units showed evidence of high/low special cause variation that may offer a useful starting point for understanding and enhancing safety culture.

Background: Vitamin D has emerging roles in fibrogenesis, cell cycle arrest, immune modulation, and tumorigenesis. Several single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene are associated with tumorigenesis in various organs.Objective: to investigate the association between the VDR gene polymorphisms and Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) risk and severity in Egyptian patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC). Methods:Five hundred thirty outpatients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection were initially enrolled, of which 180 patients with CHC, 180 patients with liver cirrhosis and 170 patients with HCC. Another 170 age-and sex-matched healthy controls were enrolled. Genotyping of VDR gene at BsmI, ApaI and TaqI loci was performed. Evaluation of clinicopathological features of HCC was done. Data were analyzed using SPSS software (Version 17.0). Results Conclusion:The present study provided significant associations of VDR gene SNPs (ApaI CC genotype and bAt[CCA]-haplotype) with HCC development and disease severity in HCV-infected Egyptian patients. Thus, the determination of these VDR genetic variants in HCV patients could help identification of patients at-risk of HCC development.

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