Exploring Patient Safety Culture in a Kuwaiti Secondary Care Setting

Abstract

Objectives: Qualitative studies can improve understanding of patient safety culture (PSC), which has been relatively neglected by researchers in the Gulf Cooperation Council context. This study employed a qualitative approach to explore healthcare staff and patients’ perceptions of PSC and how it can be improved. Methods: This qualitative study was conducted in a public hospital in Kuwait. Individual face-to-face interviews were used to understand the experience of healthcare staff and patients concerning PSC. After obtaining the required ethical approvals, maximum variation sampling was used. Interviews were recorded and transcribed. The analysis was inductive and thematic. Results: A total of 51 participants were included in this study (35 healthcare professionals and 16 patients). Data analysis revealed four overarching themes relevant to the research question: (1) workload; (2) communication; (3) environmental constraints; and (4) incident reporting. These issues were interrelated in practice. Kuwaiti and non-Kuwaiti participants held different views, particularly about the response to errors and expatriate staff members’ clinical skills. Conclusion: This study revealed multiple factors related to workload, communication, healthcare environment and incident reporting, which hindered the promotion of positive PSC in the included department. The presence of numerous constraints suggests that multiple interventions which target both individual and organisational levels should be implemented. KEYWORDS Health Services Research; Patient Safety; Safety Culture; Kuwait.

Patient safety culture in neonatal intensive care units: A qualitative content analysis

“…Therefore, optimizing the organizational culture by focusing on development of an appropriate vision and strategic planning to strengthen the patient's safety culture ( 12) is inevitable. Organizational learning was also mentioned as a formal procedure and a vital strategy for the promotion of the staff 's knowledge, which is in line with various studies in this field (10,12,34,35).…”

“…Physicians and nurse partners in the unit empathize with each other. This dimension is the most common form of the concept of safety culture perceived by health system workers (12,17,29); as approved by previous qualitative studies (10,17).…”

“…In the present study, the main dimension of neonatal safety culture is the achievement of professional development. Because staff are the main pillars of care provision, it is very important for them to acquire professional competencies, including high knowledge and care skills (10,32). Many studies consider healthcare professionals as a key factor in safety culture (3,12,15,33).…”

“…In this study, the importance of managers' supervision on the implementation of safety procedures, having an accident reporting system and forming a risk management and safety committee was discussed (10,12,23). But the effectiveness of such a system is questionable because, in general, serious incidents are reported, and there is still a reluctance to report these errors due to the fear of punitive actions by management, feelings of shame, and the loss of partners' trust.…”

“…In order to minimize errors and provide better care, it is important to implement a safety culture (4). Safety culture plays a critical role in achieving a safe organization (10) and improving the quality of care as a suitable concept for measuring patient safety interventions (3,11).…”