title: EMS providers' perceptions of safety climate and adherence to safe work practices.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Occupational injuries are an important source of morbidity for emergency medical services (EMS) providers. Previous work has shown that employee perceptions of an organization's commitment to safety (i.e., safety climate) correlate with adherence to safe practices.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To assess the association between perceived safety climate and compliance with safety procedures in an urban EMS system with >100,000 calls/year.
  
  
  METHODS
  EMS providers were issued a self-administered survey that included questions on demographics, years of experience, perceived safety climate, and adherence to safety procedures. Safety climate was assessed with a 20-item validated instrument. Adherence to safety procedures was assessed with a nine-item list of safety behaviors. Strict adherence to safety procedures was defined as endorsing "agree" or "strongly agree" on 80% of items. The effect of safety climate on compliance with safe practices was estimated using multiple logistic regression.
  
  
  RESULTS
  One hundred ninety-six of 221 providers (89%) completed surveys; 74% were male; the median age was 36-40 years; and the median amount of experience was 8 years. One hundred twenty-seven of 196 respondents (65%) reported strict adherence to safe work practice. Factor analysis confirmed the original six-factor grouping of questions; frequent safety-related feedback/training was significantly associated with safe practices (odds ratio [OR] = 2.14, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.01-4.51).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  EMS workers perceiving a high degree of perceived safety climate was associated with twofold greater odds of self-reported level of strict adherence to safe work practices. Frequent safety-related feedback/training was the one dimension of safety climate that had the strongest association with adherence to safe workplace behaviors.
authors: Department of Emergency Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA.
authors: Laura J
authors: LJ
authors: Eliseo
authors: Kate A
authors: KA
authors: Murray
authors: Laura F
authors: LF
authors: White
authors: Sophia
authors: S
authors: Dyer
authors: Patricia A
authors: PA
authors: Mitchell
authors: William G
authors: WG
authors: Fernandez
mesh_terms: D000062:Accidents, Occupational / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008404:Massachusetts; D016272:Occupational Health; D015279:Organizational Culture; D010465:Perception; D017751:Safety Management / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D057566:Self Report; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States; D014505:Urban Population; D017132:Workplace / Q000706:statistics & numerical data