Safety climate assessment

Cross-national studies require effective coordination within and between countries. We believe that the first step is a European netwoik of HSPSC users and, to a certain degree, the process of writing this chapter has contributed to such a network by identifying researchers and practitioners with an interest in safety climate assessment. Such a network would also help to connect groups within countries that have developed parallel versions (e.g. Spain and Italy). 

There are various safety climate assessment tools available which allow employers and responsible persons to assess the state of their safety culture. These normally take the form of staff questionnaires which can be used along with tangible indicators of safety culture (see 4.3 below). 

Huang, Y. H. et al. (2006). Safety climate and self-reported injury Assessing the mediating role of employee safety control. Accident Analysis and Prevention. 38(3), 425-433. 

Safety climate surveys are well embedded as measures of safety culture in industry and have also been translated and applied in healthcare (Abdullah et al. 2009 Cox and Cheyne 2000 Cox and Cox 1991 Coyle et al. 1995 Flin et al. 2006 Helmreich arid Merritt 1998 Meams et al. 1998, 2003 Modak et al. 2007 Nieva and Sorra 2003 Smits et al. 2008 Sorra and Nieva 2004). Safety climate is regarded as the surface features of the underlying safety culture (Flin et al. 2000). Surveys typically assess workforce perceptions of procedures and behaviours in the work environment that indicate the priority given to safety. 

Yule, S., Flin, R. and Murdy, A. 2007. The role of management and safety climate in preventing risk-taking at work. International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management, 7(2), 137-51. 

From a measmement perspective, ... safety climate can be conceived of as a snapshot , or manifestation of culture (Cox and Fhn 1998 Naevestad 2009 127-8) that can be assessed using quantitative measures, while safety culture may rather... 

In a second step, pubUcations were reviewed for resrrlts on discriminant construct validity by searching for calculations of inter-correlations among the safety climate dimensiorts. In addition, internal consistency was reviewed by assessing Cronbach s alpha for each of the 12 dimensions. The results on Cronbach s alpha were compared to the original HSPSC version by Soria and Nieva (2004) as well as across Ettropean cormtries. 

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. 

The strrveys of patient safely climate served Urriversity Hospital Zurich as a kind of roadmap to the futirre. Over the period between the comprehensive initial strrvey, conducted in 2006, and the most recerrt assessmerrt of patient safety chmate in an individual organisational rrrrit, these srrrveys have become a more or less standardised component of the hospital s qrralily management system. It has also been found that assessments of patient safety climate can be undertaken both at the level of individual teams in cormection with an intervention... 

A mission statement communicates the broad goals and the organization s commitment to safety, to employees, and to the public. A common theme found in safety policy statements is that of ongoing safety performance assessment and improvement. It is through the safety policy statement that an organization establishes the safety climate. 

There are additional safety metrics techniques that can be used to assess the safety climate in an organization in terms of the organization s management, employees, and environment. The environment includes the physical environment, the equipment, and the interfaces between the workers and the work environment. Each area provides the safety professional with additional information to determine if the safety performance in the organization is at an acceptable level. 

For a safety program to be effective, the safety climate needs to be supportive of the program. The safety climate includes management, workers, the physical equipment in the workplace, and the interfaces between the people and the environment. Perception surveys can be used to assess the status of the safety climate in the workplace. Key areas that perception surveys can assess include management support for safety and employees attitudes and beliefs about safety. Environmental conditions and interfaces between equipment and workers can be assessed using various system safety techniques. Examples of system safety techniques include root cause analysis and failure modes and effects analysis. 

Mearns K, Hope L, Eord MT, Tetrick LE (2010) Investment in workforce health exploring the implications for workforce safety climate and commitment. Accid Anal Prev 42(5) 1445—1454 Mohaghegh Z, Mosleh A (2009) Incorporating organizational factors into probabilistic risk assessment of complex socio-technical systems principles and theoretical foundations. Saf Sci 47(8) 1139-1158... 

Neathey E, Sinclair A, Rick J, Ballard J, Hunt W, Denvir A (2006) An evaluation of the five steps to risk assessment, research report 476. Health and Safely Executive, London, http //www.hse. gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr476.pdf. Accessed 18 June 2014 Olsen E (2010) Exploring the possibility of a common stmctural model measuring associations between safety climate factors and safety behaviour in health care and the petroleum sectors. Accid Anal Prev 42(5) 1507-1516... 

Huy QN (2002) Emotional balancing of organizational continuity and radical change the contribution of middle managers. Adm Sci Q 47(l) 31-69 ICC A (2014) Responsible care. International Council of Chemical Associations (ICC A), http // www.icca-chem.org/. Accessed 16 June 2014 Kaiser HF (1974) An index of factor simplicity. Psychometrika 39(l) 31-36 Kapp EA (2012) The influence of supervisor leadership practices and perceived group safety climate on employee safety performance. Saf Sci 50(4) 1119-1124 Le Coze J-C (2013) Outlines of a sensitising model for industtial safety assessment. Saf Sci 51 (1) 187-201... 

The US Department of Energy, Human Performance Improvement Handbook, Volume II, has several surveys and tools that can be used to aid in defining the organizational safety climate, human performance gap analysis tool, and a job site condihons self-assessment (Volume 2 Human performance tools for individuals, work teams, and management, human performance improvement handbook, 2009). 

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