Safety Attitude Questionnaire

Around 2004 the first safety culture tools designed for healthcare began to appear. Maity of these tools are in the form of survey instruments or questioimaires, the two most well-known being the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSPSC) developed by the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ - Sexton et al. 2006). Both instruments are described in detail within the book and illustrated with... 

Research has been carried out to test the psychometric properties of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire and AHRQ Hospital Safety Culture Survey (Nieva and Sorra 2003 Sexton et al. 2006 Sorra and Nieva 2004). However, there have been important misapplications of survey tools in healthcare. A proliferation of climate surveys now exist, including many where the factor stmcture and construct validity have not been tested. Many hospitals have developed their own bespoke survey tools and these are poorly designed because basic survey design rules have not been followed. One common issue is surveys that do not counter-balance positive and negative statements, thus increasing the risk of response set bias where the... 

Modak, L, Sexton, J.B., Lux, T.R., Helmreich, R.L. and Thomas, E.J. 2007. Measnring safety culture in the ambulatory setting The safety attitudes questionnaire-ambulatory version. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 22(1), 1-5. 

Norden-Hagg, A., Sexton, J.B., Kalvemaik-Sporrong, S., Ring, L. and Kettis-Lindblad, A. 2010. Assessing safety culture in pharmacies The psychometric vahdation of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ) in a national sample of commnnity pharmacies in Swedea Biomed Central Clinical Pharmacology, 10, 1-40. 

Sexton, J.B., Hehnreich, R.L., Neilands, T.B., Rowan, K., Vella, K., Boyden J., Roberts, PR. and Thomas, E.J. 2006. The safety attitudes questionnaire Psychometric properties, benchmarking data, and emerging research. BMC Health Services Research, 6, 44. 

Safety Attitudes Questionnaire Recent Findings and Future Areas of Research... 

Patient safety researchers have developed several surveys to assess patient safety climate, including the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ), AHRQ s Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (SOPS see Chapter 12 for more detailed information), and Patient Safety Climate in Healthcare Organizations. Our chapter provides an in-depth examination of the SAQ in terms of what it measures, key findings and limitations and future areas in need of research. 

Table 13.2 Safety Attitudes Questionnaire summary of study findings...

Frankel et al. (2008) Executive Walk Rounds Two years Two acute care hospitals Safety Attitudes Questionnaire Hospital A increased from 62% to 77% Hospital B increased from 46% to 56%... 

Haynes et al. (2011) Checklists Within three months Eight hospitals in the Safe Surgery Saves Lives programme Safety Attitudes Questionnaire On a 5-point scale, safety culture increased ITom 3.91 to 4.01... 

O Leary et al. (2010) Structured Inter-disciplinary Rounds Six months Teaching service unit inatertiary care teaching hospital Safety Attitudes Questionnaire Teamwork culture scores higher on intervention unit (82.4%) than control unit (77.3%)... 

Wolf et al. (2010) Medical Team Training One Day Operating room Safety Attitudes Questionnaire No significant change... 

Etchegaray, J.M. and Thomas, E.J. 2012. Comparing two safety culture surveys Safety Attitudes Questionnaire and Hospital Survey on Patient Safety. BMJ... 

Profit, J., Etchegaray, J.M., Peterson, L.A., Sexton, J.B., Hysong, S.J., Mei, M. and Thomas, E.J. 2012. The Safety Attitudes Questionnaire as a tool for benchmarking safety culture in the NICU. Archives of Disease in Childhood Fetal and Neonatal Edition, 97, F127-32. 

Watts, B.V, Percarpio, K., West, P. and Mills, P.D. 2010. Use of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire as a measure in patient safety improvement. Journal... 

A Safety Attitudes Questionnaire was administered to operating theatre staff before and after a simulation- based team training program, to assess the effectiveness of the program in changing the safety and teamwork culture. At present, insufficient data are currently available to allow statistically valid conclusions to be drawn. 

Three months after the training 346 safety attitude questionnaires were administered. At the time of writing there have been 41 returns (response rate of 12 per cent). Insufficient data are eurrently available to allow statistically valid conclusions to be drawn. Interim analysis suggests no significant change in the climates of safety or teamwork. Preliminary data are displayed in Table 19.2. 

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