Evaluation of patient safety culture among community pharmacists in Ethiopia: A cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVE: The study was aimed to explore patient safety culture of community pharmacists working in Dessie and Gondar towns, Northern Ethiopia. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted from 1(st) to 31(st) March 2018. In this cross-sectional survey, the Pharmacy Survey on Patient Safety Culture (PSOPSC), developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), was used to collect data. PSOPSC is a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed among staffs who work in community pharmacies of Dessie and Gondar towns. All staffs available on data collection period in the pharmacy were included. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) software version 25 was used to enter and analyze the data. RESULTS: A total of 120 participants were approached and completed the questionnaire. Results from the study showed that high positive response rate was demonstrated in the domains of “Teamwork” (90.2%) followed by physical space and environment (83.1%). On the other hand, the result also identified that there is an enormous problem related to mistake communication (44.8%) and work pressure (45%). In addition, significant difference of percent positive responses were obtained across towns and staff working hours. CONCLUSIONS: The patient safety culture of community pharmacists is appreciable especially with respect to their teamwork. Besides, urgent attention should be given to areas of weakness, mainly in the domain of “mistake communication” and “staffing and work pressure”.