title: A study of assessment of patient safety climate in tertiary care hospitals.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Medical errors are being detected with increasing frequency in healthcare environment, in many cases leading to patient harm. Measurement and improvement of patient safety climate has been identified as a strategic effort towards addressing this vital issue.
  
  
  METHODS
  Safety Attitude Questionnaire (SAQ), validated by previous research was administered to 300 respondents in three tertiary care hospitals of India, the respondents representing various categories of healthcare workers and variations in safety scale score was analyzed by various statistical tools.
  
  
  RESULTS
  No variation was observed in the Patient Safety Index score among the study hospitals. However, significant variations were observed among different categories of healthcare workers across dimensions of Teamwork, Perception of Management and Stress Recognition. Multiple Regression models identified Teamwork and Perception of Management to have significant correlation with Patient Safety Index Score.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Patient Safety Climate can be effectively assessed and such assessment utilized for focused improvement efforts towards safety in healthcare organizations.
authors: Commandant, Military Hospital Jhansi, C/O 56 APO, India.
authors: Abhijit
authors: A
authors: Chakravarty
authors: Resident, Dept of Hospital Administration, Armed Forces Medical College, Pune 411040, India.
authors: Anupam
authors: A
authors: Sahu
authors: Professor & Head, Dept of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Armed Forces Medical College, Pune 411040, India.
authors: Manash
authors: M
authors: Biswas
authors: Officer-in-Charge, Med Informatics, INHS Asvini, Colaba, Mumbai, India.
authors: Kaustuv
authors: K
authors: Chatterjee
authors: Head of Department, SQC & OR, Indian Statistical Institute, Pune, India.
authors: Subrata
authors: S
authors: Rath
keywords: Patient safety climate; Quality improvement; Stress recognition; Teamwork