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The Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC) is a rigorously designed tool for measuring inpatient safety culture. The purpose of this paper is to develop a cross-cultural HSOPSC for Hungary and determine its strengths and weaknesses.

The original US version was translated and adapted using existing guidelines. Healthcare workers (n=371) including nurses, physicians and other healthcare staff from six Hungarian hospitals participated. Answers were analyzed using exploratory factor analyses and reliability tests.

Positive responses in all dimensions were lower in Hungary than in the USA. Half the participants considered their work area “acceptable” regarding patient safety. Healthcare staff worked in “crisis mode,” trying to accomplish too much and too quickly. The authors note that a “blame culture” does not facilitate patient safety improvements in Hungary.

The results provide valuable information for promoting a more positive patient safety culture in Hungary and for evaluating future strategies to improve patient safety.

Introducing a validated scale to measure patient safety culture in Hungary improves healthcare quality.

In a climate of ongoing political, economic, technological, and cultural changes in Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, this chapter describes the kinds of changes happening with the health care system and the preparation of health care professionals in one selected country, that of Hungary. Emphasis will be focused on the nursing sub-sector of the health system. Some comparison and contrast will be done between these systems in Hungary and the U.S. Changes will be presented in the context of the European Union and the Bolonga Declaration.