Assessing safety culture in pharmacies: the psychometric validation of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ) in a national sample of community pharmacies in Sweden.
BACKGROUND
Safety culture assessment is increasingly recognized as an important component in healthcare quality improvement, also in pharmacies. One of the most commonly used and rigorously validated tools to measure safety culture is the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire; SAQ. This study presents the validation of the SAQ for use in Swedish pharmacies. The psychometric properties of the translated questionnaire are presented


METHODS
The original English language version of the SAQ was translated and adapted to the Swedish context and distributed by e-mail. The survey was carried out on a national basis, covering all 870 Swedish community pharmacies. In total, 7,244 questionnaires were distributed. Scale psychometrics were analysed using Cronbach alphas and intercorrelations among the scales. Multiple group confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted.


RESULTS
SAQ data from 828 community pharmacies in Sweden, including 4,090 (60.22%) pharmacy personnel out of 6,683 eligible respondents, were received. There were 252 (28.97%) pharmacies that met the inclusion criteria of having at least 5 respondents and a minimum response rate of 60% within that pharmacy.The coefficient alpha value for each of the SAQ scales ranged from .72 to .89. The internal consistency results, in conjunction with the confirmatory factor analysis results, demonstrate that the Swedish translation of the SAQ has acceptable to good psychometric properties. Perceptions of the pharmacy (Teamwork Climate, Job Satisfaction, Perceptions of Management, Safety Climate, and Working Conditions) were moderately to highly correlated with one another whereas attitudes about stress (Stress Recognition) had only low correlations with other factors. Perceptions of management showed the most variability across pharmacies (SD = 26.66), whereas Stress Recognition showed the least (SD = 18.58). There was substantial variability ranging from 0% to 100% in the percent of positive scores for each of the factors across the 252 pharmacies.


CONCLUSIONS
The Swedish translation of the SAQ demonstrates acceptable construct validity, for capturing the frontline perspective of safety culture of community pharmacy staff. The psychometric results reported here met or exceeded standard guidelines, which is consistent with previous studies using the SAQ in other healthcare settings and other languages.
Nordén-Hägg
Annika
A
Department of Pharmacy, Uppsala University, Box 570, S-751 23 Uppsala, Sweden.
Sexton
J Bryan
JB
The Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine, Quality & Safety Research Group, 1909 Thames Street, 2nd floor, Baltimore, Maryland, 21231, USA.
Kälvemark-Sporrong
Sofia
S
Department of Pharmacy, Uppsala University, Box 570, S-751 23 Uppsala, Sweden.|Department of Public Health and Caring Services, Uppsala University, Box 564, S-751 23 Uppsala, Sweden.
Ring
Lena
L
Department of Pharmacy, Uppsala University, Box 570, S-751 23 Uppsala, Sweden.|Health Economics & Outcomes Research, R&D, AstraZeneca, S-151 85 Södertälje, Sweden.
Kettis-Lindblad
Åsa
Å
Department of Pharmacy, Uppsala University, Box 570, S-751 23 Uppsala, Sweden.
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D006801:Humans; D015279:Organizational Culture; D010594:Pharmacies / Q000592:standards*; D010595:Pharmacists / Q000523:psychology / Q000592:standards*; D011594:Psychometrics; D013339:Students, Pharmacy / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D013548:Sweden