Introduction

Patient safety is crucial for healthcare quality and patient trust. It involves activities, attitudes, and procedures to minimise medical errors and provide high standards of care.

Aim of the research

The aim of the study was to assess patient safety culture from the perspective of medical staff in a hospital, taking into account professional group affiliation and length of service.

Material and methods

The research group included N = 78 medical staff members (80% nurses and midwives, 20% doctors). The Polish adaptation of the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC) was used.

Results

Overall patient safety, measured as the average percentage of positive responses across 12 dimensions, was 36.8%. The best-assessed area was “Teamwork within units”, while the lowest was “Hospital management support for patient safety”. Differences were found between nurses/midwives and doctors: physicians rated “Staffing” more positively and reported more adverse events (c2 = 11.16, df = 2, p = 0.004). Employees with higher length of service (> 10 vs. ≤ 10 years) rated “Organizational learning – continuous improvement” higher (p = 0.03). However, length of service was not statistically associated with adverse event reporting frequency (p = 0.71). Employees who believed their mistakes would be used against them assessed overall patient safety more negatively (p < 0.001).

Conclusions

The study’s findings can help identify areas for improvement in patient safety culture, enabling targeted solutions to reduce adverse events and improve error reporting processes.