Safety culture in two metropolitan Australian tertiary hospital intensive care units: A cross-sectional survey.

BACKGROUND

Safety culture is significant in the complex intensive care environment, where the consequences of human error can be catastrophic. Research within Australian intensive care units has been limited and little is understood about the safety culture of intensive care units in Queensland.

AIM

The aim was to evaluate and compare safety culture in the intensive care units of two metropolitan tertiary hospitals in Queensland.

METHOD

A cross-sectional survey, Safety Attitudes Questionnaire, was administered to all medical, nursing and allied health professionals in the research sites (A and B) during January and February 2016. Data were collated into six safety culture domains of teamwork climate, safety climate, job satisfaction, stress recognition, working conditions and perceptions of management. Comparison was made using t-tests and between demographic groups using generalising estimating equations.

RESULTS

In total, 206 surveys were returned from 522 staff (39.5% response rate). The majority of respondents were nurses (80.6%). Site B scored all domains of the safety attitudes questionnaire significantly higher than Site A (p < 0.001). The scores for both site A and B were significantly higher in all domains (p < 0.001) than a previous Australian study conducted in 2013. Both sites returned low scores in the stress recognition domain. Medical staff perceived the teamwork climate as more positive than nursing staff (mean difference 16.6 [Wald χ = 10383.8, p < 0.001]). Allied health professionals reported poorer perceptions of working conditions than medical staff (mean difference 7.8 [Wald χ = 775.4, p < 0.001]).

CONCLUSION

Despite similar governance and external structures, differences were found in safety culture between the two research sites. This finding emphasises the importance of local, unit-level assessment of safety culture and planning of improvement strategies. This study adds to the evidence and implications for critical care clinical practice that these interventions need to be unit focused, supported by management and multidisciplinary in approach.