Linking transformational leadership, patient safety culture and work engagement in home care services

AIM: To assess the relationship between transformational leadership, job demands, job resources, patient safety culture and work engagement in home care services. DESIGN: Cross‐sectional survey. METHODS: Healthcare professionals in Norwegian home care services participated in the study (N = 139). Multiple regression analyses with patient safety culture and work engagement as outcomes and transformational leadership, job demands, job resources as predictors were conducted. RESULTS: The transformational leadership model explained 35.7% of the variance in patient safety culture. Adding job demands and resources and work engagement to the model increased the explained variance to 53.5%. The job resource “skill utilization” was the strongest predictor of work engagement. The full model with all predictor variables explained 28.2% of work engagement. CONCLUSION: Transformational leadership has a significant impact on patient safety culture and work engagement in home care services. Employees' perceptions of job demands, available resources and engagement also affect patient safety culture.