Validation study of the safety attitudes questionnaire (SAQ) in public hospitals of Heilongjiang province, China

PURPOSE: The objective of this study was to validate the reliability and validity of the safety attitudes questionnaire (SAQ) in Heilongjiang province, northern China. METHODS: The SAQ was distributed to 27 public hospitals in five cities across Heilongjiang province. The Cronbach’s α, item–dimension and dimension–dimension correlations were calculated. Descriptive analyses and confirmatory factor analysis were also performed. RESULTS: The recovery rate of the questionnaire was 84.45%. The validity and reliability measures of the SAQ were acceptable. The goodness-of-fit index from the confirmatory factor analysis showed a reasonable model fit (CFI = 0.93, GFI = 0.91, RMSEA = 0.05). The Cronbach’s α value for the scale was 0.91 and ranged from 0.66 to 0.91 for each of the scales. The SAQ showed good internal consistency reliability. CONCLUSION: The SAQ had satisfactory psychometric properties and could be a useful tool to measure safety attitudes in public hospitals in Heilongjiang province in China.