title: A survey on clinical governance awareness among clinical staff: a cross-sectional study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Clinical Governance (CG) program has been raised in Iran in order to improve the quality of clinical care. The purpose of this study is to investigate the awareness of clinical governance program among clinical staff working in selected teaching hospitals in Tehran, Iran.
  
  
  METHODS
  To investigate the CG awareness, a cross-sectional survey was conducted among 345 clinical staff working in 20 selected public hospitals in Tehran. Data were gathered using the standardized clinical governance awareness questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results showed that the level of staff awareness about the concept of CG was low. They perceived continuous quality improvement, responsibility, medical errors reduction and patient safety as the main concepts of the CG framework. Reaching agreement of standards concepts among staff and positive changes in attitudes were considered as two most observed changes. The main perceived barriers to the implementation of clinical governance included lack of proper management and leadership, lack of full support, inappropriate organizational culture, lack of knowledge, poor communication system and insufficient training.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The concepts and goals of clinical governance have not been effectively conveyed to the staff and despite its implementation in the hospitals, there has been low clinical governance awareness among the staff. Clinical Governance must be implemented through comprehensive management support and participation of all staff and health professionals at both hospital and policy making level.
authors.forename: Hamid
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ravaghi
authors.forename: Rahim Khodayari
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Zarnaq
authors.forename: Amin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Adel
authors.affiliation: . badpa.mahnaz@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Mahnaz
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Badpa
authors.forename: Moein
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Adel
authors.forename: Nazanin
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Abolhassani
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D054976:Clinical Governance; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D006302:Health Services Research; D006779:Hospitals, Public; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D058996:Quality Improvement; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires