Background: Patients' safety is a critical component of health care quality. As health care organizations continually strive to improve, there is important growing recognize of establishing a culture of patients' safety. To establish a safety culture in a healthcare organization, the first step is measuring the current culture. The aim of the study was to measure physicians, nurses and Para clinical personnel perceptions in patient safety culture in Tehran's selected hospitals, and to compare findings with U.S. hospitals.
Materials & Methods: Physicians, nurses, and Para clinical personnel who worked in training hospitals affiliated with Tehran university of medical sciences were asked to complete a self-administrated patients' safety culture survey (n = 145). Data collection was carried by using the Persian version of HSOPS, developed by Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Cronbach's alpha and chi-square tests were employed in statistical analyses.
Results: Among the dimensions of patients' safety culture with the highest percentage of positive responses the teamwork within units (67%) was higher, whereas that with the lowest percentage of positive responses was non-punitive response to error (51%). Except to Handoffs and transitions dimension the entire dimension scores were lower than the benchmark scores. The study revealed that more than half of the participants were not reported the errors.
Conclusion: Improving patients' safety culture should be a priority among hospital administrators. Meanwhile, Healthcare staff should be encouraged to report errors without fear of punishment action.