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This paper aims to assess how patient safety culture and incident reporting differs across different professional groups and between long-term and acute care. The Hospital Survey On Patient Safety Culture (HSPOSC) questionnaire was used to assess patient safety culture. Data from the organizations’ incident reporting system was also used to determine the number of reported patient safety incidents.

Patient safety culture is part of the organizational culture and is associated for example to rate of pressure ulcers, hospital-acquired infections and falls. Managers in health-care organizations have the important and challenging responsibility of promoting patient safety culture. Managers generally think that patient safety culture is better than it is.

Based on statistical analysis, acute care professionals’ views were significantly positive in 8 out of 12 composites. Managers assessed patient safety culture at a higher level than other professional groups. There were statistically significant differences (p = 0.021) in frequency of events reported between professional groups and between long-term and acute care (p = 0.050). Staff felt they did not get enough feedback about reported incidents.

The study reveals differences in safety culture between acute care and long-term care settings, and between professionals and managers. The staff felt that they did not get enough feedback about reported incidents. In the future, education should take these factors into consideration.

The purpose of this paper is to perform and report a systematic review of published research on patient safety attitudes of health staff employed in hospital emergency departments (EDs).

An electronic search was conducted of PsychINFO, ProQuest, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PubMed and CINAHL databases. The review included all studies that focussed on the safety attitudes of professional hospital staff employed in EDs.

Overall, the review revealed that the safety attitudes of ED health staff are generally low, especially on teamwork and management support and among nurses when compared to doctors. Conversely, two intervention studies showed the effectiveness of team building interventions on improving the safety attitudes of health staff employed in EDs.

Six studies met the inclusion criteria, however, most of the studies demonstrated low to moderate methodological quality.

Teamwork, communication and management support are central to positive safety attitudes. Teamwork training can improve safety attitudes. Given that EDs are the “front-line” of hospital care and patients within EDs are especially vulnerable to medical errors, future research should focus on the safety attitudes of medical staff employed in EDs and its relationship to medical errors.