Patient Safety Culture in Primary Healthcare Centers in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia

PURPOSE: This study aimed to explore health-care workers’ perceptions of patient safety culture (PSC) at primary health-care centers (PHCs) in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia and the factors that influence them. An additional aim was to identify the challenges of adopting PSCs in the PHCs of this region. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study that adopted a PSC questionnaire from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The questionnaire was administered online and onsite targeted health-care workers at private, governmental, and quasi-governmental PHCs in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, with 310 participants completing the survey. RESULTS: The overall positive response rate of participants to the survey areas was 43.5% which is lower than the average for the AHRQ data in general. Teamwork scored the highest positive response (68.8%) while Number of Events and non-punitive Response to Error scored the lowest at 10.6% and 30.7%, respectively. In addition, ANOVA and t-tests were used to determine the bivariate associations for the parametric variables. The study reveals statistically significant differences between all demographic variables and overall PSC score, except by age. CONCLUSION: The findings highlight a number of areas for improvement, particularly in relation to event reporting, non-punitive responses, and openness in communication. Consequently, establishing a safety culture in health-care organizations necessitates the elimination of three crucial elements regarding errors: blame, fear, and silence. Error reporting should not just be considered a means of learning from mistakes; it should also be considered the first step towards preventing injury and improving patient safety.