The Effect of Safety Culture Education on Improvement of Managers’ Attitudes towards Patients' Safety

Background & Objectives: Medical errors have turned into a major problem in health sector. The goal of this study was to measure attitudes of managers towards patients' safety before and after the Safety Culture educational course in an educational hospital of Tehran.Methods: This research is of semi-empirical type and some data have been accumulated using retrospective approach in 2011. Safety attitude questionnaire (SAQ) was applied for data collection. Sampling in this study was done using census method and included all managers of the educational hospital.Results: This study provided strong evidence to some improvement in the managers' positive attitudes to patient safety before and after safety culture education in the dimensions, as follows: teamwork climate (from 76.4% to 97.3%), safety climate (from 60% to 96.4%), job satisfaction (from 69.1% to 99.1%), stress recognition (from 20.9% to 27.3%), management perception (from 44.5% to 88.2%), and work conditions (from 59.1% to 84.5%). Some statistically significant differences were seen in the positive attitudes to safety culture before and after education in all of dimensions.Conclusion: Education has positive effect on improvement of managers' attitudes towards safety culture. The finding of this study can act as a motivating proof to the health centers to provide safety culture courses in their respective hospitals.