Determinants of patient safety culture among healthcare providers in the Upper East Region of Ghana

Objective: To find out the determinants of patient safety culture among healthcare providers in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Design: This was a cross-sectional survey of three hospitals. The Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture questionnaire was adapted for data collection. Setting: The setting was three selected hospitals (mission, public, and private) from the Upper East Region of Ghana. Participants: A total of 393 healthcare providers were invited to participate, but 384 (98%) honored the invitation. Main outcome measure: The main outcome measure (dependent variable) was overall perception of patient safety culture. Results: It was found that only 7% of the respondents thought that overall patient safety culture was excellent, while close to 14% of the respondents thought that overall patient safety culture was poor. The significant predictors of overall patient safety culture were teamwork across units (β = 126, p =.04), organizational learning (β =.112, p =.05), and management support for patient safety (β =.172, p =.00). Conclusions: Generally, patient safety culture in the selected hospitals was below expectation. In the quest to promote a culture of safety, healthcare managers of the hospitals must invest resources in promoting teamwork, organizational learning, and management support among other factors.