Exploring patient-safety culture in the community pharmacy setting: a national cross-sectional study

ABSTRACT

Objective

The community pharmacy is one setting that plays a crucial role in patient safety. To develop tailored patient safety improvement programs in this setting, it is essential to know the perspectives of the pharmacies’ staffs on patient safety. Thus, in this study, we assessed patient-safety culture in the community pharmacy setting in Saudi Arabia.

Methods

Between January and August of 2019, we conducted a cross-sectional study among staff working in the community pharmacies in Saudi Arabia. Data on patient safety culture were collected using the Pharmacy Survey on Patient Safety Culture (PSOPSC). Analyses were performed with descriptive statistics (frequency/percentages), Fisher’s Exact test, Chi-square analysis, and multivariable ordinal logistic regression with proportional odds model analysis.

Results

PSOPSC data from 805 community pharmacies in Saudi Arabia were received (response rate: 78%). The overall average positive response rate for the 11 dimensions of the PSOPSC survey was 60.2%, with a range from 34.8% in the dimension of Staffing, Work Pressure, and Pace to 76.4% in the dimension of Teamwork. Most participants responded positively, as in total, 504 (62.6%) of the participants rated their pharmacy as ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’ on patient safety. Gender and work experience in a pharmacy were important predictors of the overall patient safety grade.

Conclusions

The study revealed that all dimensions are scope for further improvement, and critical consideration ought to be given to the areas of weakness, for the most part in the dimension of Staffing, Work Pressure, and Pace.

KEYWORDS:

• Safety culture
• patient safety
• community pharmacy
• Saudi Arabia

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Deanship of Scientific Research at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University and the Saudi Association for Scientific Research (SASR) for providing their intellectual, technical, and logistical support throughout the duration of the project.

The authors would also like to thank Valerie Atherton for her help with English editing the article.

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Declaration of funding

The study was funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University (grant number 2018/03/9326).

The contents of the paper and the opinions expressed within are those of the authors, and it was the decision of the authors to submit the manuscript for publication.

Declaration of financial/other relationships

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, [ZA], upon reasonable request.