Healthcare professionals' perspectives on working conditions, leadership, and safety climate: a cross-sectional study
- PMID: 30665401
- PMCID: PMC6341698
- DOI: 10.1186/s12913-018-3862-7
Healthcare professionals' perspectives on working conditions, leadership, and safety climate: a cross-sectional study
Erratum in
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Correction to: Healthcare professionals' perspectives on working conditions, leadership, and safety climate: a cross-sectional study.BMC Health Serv Res. 2020 Jan 22;20(1):53. doi: 10.1186/s12913-019-4838-y. BMC Health Serv Res. 2020. PMID: 31969150 Free PMC article.
Abstract
Background: Promoting patient and occupational safety are two key challenges for hospitals. When aiming to improve these two outcomes synergistically, psychosocial working conditions, leadership by hospital management and supervisors, and perceptions of patient and occupational safety climate have to be considered. Recent studies have shown that these key topics are interrelated and form a critical foundation for promoting patient and occupational safety in hospitals. So far, these topics have mainly been studied independently from each other. The present study investigated hospital staffs' perceptions of four different topics: (1) psychosocial working conditions, (2) leadership, (3) patient safety climate, and (4) occupational safety climate. We present results from a survey in two German university hospitals aiming to detect differences between nurses and physicians.
Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study using a standardized paper-based questionnaire. The survey was conducted with nurses and physicians to assess the four topics. The instruments mainly consisted of scales of the German version of the COPSOQ (Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire), one scale of the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI), scales to assess leadership and transformational leadership, scales to assess patient safety climate using the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSPSC), and analogous items to assess occupational safety climate.
Results: A total of 995 completed questionnaires out of 2512 distributed questionnaires were returned anonymously. The overall response rate was 39.6%. The sample consisted of 381 physicians and 567 nurses. We found various differences with regard to the four topics. In most of the COPSOQ and the HSPSC-scales, physicians rated psychosocial working conditions and patient safety climate more positively than nurses. With regard to occupational safety, nurses indicated higher occupational risks than physicians.
Conclusions: The WorkSafeMed study combined the assessment of the four topics psychosocial working conditions, leadership, patient safety climate, and occupational safety climate in hospitals. Looking at the four topics provides an overview of where improvements in hospitals may be needed for nurses and physicians. Based on these results, improvements in working conditions, patient safety climate, and occupational safety climate are required for health care professionals in German university hospitals - especially for nurses.
Keywords: Hospital; Leadership; Occupational safety climate; Patient safety climate; Transformational leadership; Working conditions.
Conflict of interest statement
Ethics approval and consent to participate
The WorkSafeMed study with all its components was approved by the responsible ethics committees of the medical faculties of the project partners in Bonn (#350/14) and Tubingen (#547/2014BO1). Each partner complied with confidentiality requirements according to German law. Informed verbal consent was sought from participants, who were informed that the study was voluntary and that they could withdraw at any time. The need for written consent is deemed unnecessary according to national regulations.The method of acquiring the consent was approved by the ethics committees.
Consent for publication
Informed verbal consent was sought from participants. All participants consented to have the results published as part of the informed consent process. The participants were assured of their confidentiality. The need for written consent is deemed unnecessary according to national regulations.The method of acquiring the consent was approved by the ethics committees.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
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