Global Advanced Research Journal of Medicine and Medical Sciences (GARJMMS) ISSN: 2315-5159
September 2015 Vol. 4(9), pp. 402-407
Copyright © 2015 Global Advanced Research Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Canonical correlation between safety culture and quality of healthcare in Saudi Arabia

Mohammed Ratoubi Alanazi¹*, Ahmed Alamry², Mohammed Hussein³ and Mansour Moklif Alanzi⁴

¹Assistant Professor in King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences; Adjacent Research Fellow in Monash University, Australia
²Executive Director of Quality and Patient Safety in King Abdulaziz Medical City, Riyadh (NGHA) –Saudi Arabia
³Head of Advanced Analytics and Research Consulting Services in the King Abdullah International Medical Research Centre, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
⁴Family and Geriatric Medicine Consultant, King Fahd Military Medical Complex, Saudi Arabia

*Corresponding Author E-mails: mratoubi@yahoo.com; anazimoh@ksau-hs.edu.sa, AnaziMo1@ngha.med.sa; Telephone: +966555257498

Accepted 18 September, 2015

Abstract

The current study aimed to examine the association between hospital nurses’ attitudes about the safety culture and patients’ views about the quality of healthcare services delivered to them during their hospitalization. This study is cross section study as well as adopted the correlational design. The study used the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture to assess nurses’ perceptions about the safety culture, and the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey to assess patients’ experience of care. The current study was conducted in a tertiary healthcare organization in Riyadh city in Saudi Arabia. The response rates for nurses and patients were 79% and 80%, respectively. In nurses' sample, the majority 92.9% was female and 90.6% was non-Saudi; while 43.5% of patients were male and the majority was Saudi 97.1%. More than half of the nurses 57.2% were married and 35.4% identified themselves as single. On the other hand, the majority of patients 81.5% were married and 48.7% of patients had a diploma or high school or less.  The results of canonical correlation analysis showed positive and strong correlations between nurses’ perceptions of safety culture (facilitators and threats to patient safety) and patients’ perceptions of quality of healthcare (interpersonal care communication and technical quality of care). The canonical variates for both root pairs (canonical correlation coefficients = 0.89 and 0.81). This finding clearly proves that in workplaces where staffs have more positive perceptions of patient safety culture, patients have more positive experiences of care.

Keywords: Quality, Safety culture, Canonical correlation, Saudi Arabia