Patient safety culture in primary health care: analysis by professional categories

Abstract

OBJECTIVE

To compare the patient safety culture among the professional categories working in Primary Health Care.

METHOD

A cross-sectional study carried out between April and May 2017 in a municipality in south Brazil, with 144 workers who answered the instrument "Research on Patient Safety Culture for Primary Care". In addition to the descriptive analysis, the Kruskal-Wallis test was used to compare the patient safety culture among the professional categories followed by the post hoc Dunn multiple comparisons test.

RESULTS

The highest and lowest overall scores of positive responses to the patient's safety culture were respectively for nurses (67.70%) and community health agents (46.73%). In the comparative analyses, the physicians, community health agents, and dentists had significant differences in comparison to the other categories, tending toward a less positive culture.

CONCLUSION

Differences were observed in the patient safety culture among professional categories investigated.

Keywords:
Patient safety; Organizational culture; Primary healthcare; Patient care team; Nursing