Abstract
Background: Despite a significant amount of attention towards the safety and quality of acute care, little focus has been paid to the residential aged care sector, especially in the Asian region. This research aimed to assess the safety and quality culture within two nursing homes in Singapore. Methods: A cross-sectional study used a validated 42-item Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture (NHSPSC) tool. Minor linguistic adjustments were made to the tool, and its internal reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha. Results: The Cronbach’s alpha values for the 12 PSC Composites ranged from 0.519 to 0.781, nine PSC Composites were >0.6 (adequate), indicating NHSPSC had acceptable internal reliability in the Singapore context. Of the 12 PSC Composites calculated for the two Singapore nursing homes, six were >90th percentile, four were >75th percentile and two >50th percentile. Conclusion: The NHSPSC tool provided an assessment of residential aged care safety and quality culture of the two nursing homes in Singapore. In general, the staff at the nursing homes in Singapore perceived a higher percentile residential safety culture compared to the US Comparative Database. The findings of this study demonstrated the importance of communication openness in residential safety culture.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Abbreviations
- PSC:
-
Patient Safety Culture
- NHSPSC:
-
Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture
- AHRQ:
-
Agency for Healthcare Research Quality
References
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. (2016). Nursing home survey on patient safety culture. Retrieved, from http://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/quality-patient-safety/patientsafetyculture/nursing-home/resources/nhsurvey.html, http://www.ahrq.gov/professionals/quality-patient-safety/patientsafetyculture/nursing-home/index.html.
Arnetz, J. E., Zhdamova, L. S., Elsouhag, D., Lichtenberg, P., Luborsky, M. R., & Arnetz, B. B. (2011). Organizational climate determinants of resident safety culture in nursing homes. Gerontologist, 51(6), 739–749. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnr053.
Ausserhofer, D., Schubert, M., Desmedt, M., Blegen, M. A., De Geest, S., & Schwendimann, R. (2013). The association of patient safety climate and nurse-related organizational factors with selected patient outcomes: a cross-sectional survey. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 50, 240–252. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2012.04.007.
Bonner, A. F., Castle, N. G., Perera, S., & Handler, S. M. (2008). Patient safety culture: A review of the nursing home literature and recommendations for practice. The Annals of Long-term Care: The Official Journal of the American Medical Directors Association, 16(3), 18–22.
Buljac-Samardzic, M., van Wijngaarden, J. D., & Dekker–van Doorn, C. M. (2015). Safety culture in long-term care: a cross-sectional analysis of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire in nursing and residential homes in the Netherlands. BMJ Quality & Safety. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2014-003397.
Castle, N. G., Wagner, L. M., Perera, S., Ferguson, J. C., & Handler, S. M. (2011). Comparing the safety culture of nursing homes and hospitals. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 30, 22–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/0733464809353603.
Chen, I., & Li, H. (2010). Measuring patient safety culture in Taiwan using the hospital survey on patient safety culture (HSOPSC). BMC Health Services Research, 10, 152. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-10-152.
El-Jardali, F., Dimassi, H., Jamal, D., Jaafar, M., & Hemadeh, N. (2011). Predictors and outcomes of patient safety culture in hospitals. BMC Health Services Research, 11, 45. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-11-45.
Goh, L. G. H., Welborn, T. A., & Dhaliwal, S. S. (2014). Independent external validation of cardiovascular disease mortality in women utilising Framingham and SCORE risk models: a mortality follow-up study. BMC Womens Health, 14(1), 118. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6874-14-118.
Halligan, M., & Zecevic, A. (2011). Safety culture in healthcare: a review of concepts, dimensions, measures and progress. BMJ Quality & Safety, 20, 338–343. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs.2010.040964.
Handler, S. M., Castle, N. G., Perera, S., Fridsma, D. B., Nace, D. A., & Hanlon, J. T. (2006). Patient safety culture assessment in the nursing home. Quality & Safety in Health Care, 15, 400–404. https://doi.org/10.1136/qshc.2006.018408.
Johnstone, M., & Kanitsaki, O. (2006). Culture, language, and patient safety: making the link. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 18(5), 383–388.
Manser, A. (2014). The use of the hospital survey on patient safety culture in Europe. Patient safety culture-theory, methods and application (W (P ed.). Wey Court East, Union Road, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Limited.
McDonald, P. (2015). Growing older before growing rich in Asia. In East Asia Forum: Economics, Politics and Public Policy in East Asia and the Pacific. http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2015/12/08/growing-old-before-growing-rich-in-asia/.
National Population and Talent Division, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore Department of Statistics, Ministry of Home Affaires, & Immigration & Checkpoints Authority. (2015). Population in brief. Singapore. http://population.sg/population-in-brief/files/population-in-brief-2015.pdf.
Nichols, P., Horner, B., & Fyfe, K. (2015). Understanding and improving communication processes in an increasingly multicultural aged care workforce. Journal of Aging Studies, 32, 23–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2014.12.003.
Nieva, V. F., & Sorra, J. (2003). Safety culture assessment: a tool for improving patient safety in healthcare organizations. Quality & Safety in Health Care, 12, ii17-ii23.
O’Keeffe, V. (2016). Saying and doing: CALD workers’ experience of communicating safety in aged care. Safety Science, 84, 131–139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2015.12.011.
Portney, L. G., & Watkins, M. P. (2009). Foundations of clinical research: applications to practice (Vol. 892). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
Schafer, J. L. (1999). Multiple imputation: A primer. Statistical Methods in Medical Research, 8, 3–15.
Schiller, S. Z., & Cui, J. (2010). Communication openness in the workplace: the effects of medium (F2F and IM) and culture (U.S. and China). Journal of Global Information Technology Management, 13, 37–75.
Thomas, K. S., Hyer, K., Castle, N. G., Branch, L. G., Andel, R., & Weech-Maldonado, R. (2012). Patient safety culture and the association with safe resident care in nursing homes. Gerontologist, 52, 802–811. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gns007.
Turner, S. P. (1979). The concept of face validity. Quality & Quantity, 12, 85–90.
Verma, P. (2013). Relationship between organizational communication flow and communication climate. International Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Business Management, 1, 63–71.
Wagner, C., Smits, M., Sorra, J., & Huang, C. C. (2013). Assessing patient safety culture in hospitals across countries. The International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 25, 213–221. https://doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/mzt024.
Zúñiga, F., Schwappach, D., De Geest, S., & Schwendimann, R. (2013). Psychometric properties of the Swiss version of the nursing home survey on patient safety culture. Safety Science, 55, 88–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2012.12.010.
Acknowledgements
The Lions Home for the Elders, Singapore provided in-kind support for this study.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Ethics declarations
No external funding.
Ethics Approval
Ethics approval was obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committees of Curtin University, Western Australia, and permission was granted by the Management Committee of the two residential nursing homes in Singapore.
Availability of Data and Materials
The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available but summary data as tables can be made available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Competing Interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Della, P.R., Ma, L., Roberts, P.A., Zhou, H., Michael, R., Dhaliwal, S.S. (2020). Assessment of Safety Culture: A Singapore Residential Aged Care Cross-Sectional Study. In: Watson, B., Krieger, J. (eds) Expanding Horizons in Health Communication. The Humanities in Asia, vol 6. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4389-0_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4389-0_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-15-4388-3
Online ISBN: 978-981-15-4389-0
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)