Medication Safety Climate Questionnaire: Development and Psychometric Analysis

Kantilal, K.; Auyeung, V.; Whittlesea, C.; Oborne, A.

Abstract

Medication safety improvement strategies require a better understanding of the safety culture specifically related to medicines. In healthcare, safety climate questionnaires are often used as a proxy measure of the underlying safety culture. However, there are currently not known instruments to assess medication safety climate. The study therefore aimed to develop and evaluate a medication safety climate questionnaire for healthcare staff in UK hospitals. Two validated patient safety climate instruments were adapted to develop a Medication Safety Climate (MSC) questionnaire. Data was collected from 510 healthcare professionals (response rate 9.4%); routinely involved with prescribing, dispensing, administering and monitoring medication; in two acute NHS hospitals in London. Confirmatory factor analysis and reliability analyses were conducted to determine the psychometric properties of the MSC questionnaire. Results showed that the 50-item MSC questionnaire contained nine factors—teamwork climate, safety climate, job satisfaction, stress recognition, perceptions of management, working conditions, organisational learning, feedback and communication about error and management support for medication safety. Internal consistency reliability scores for eight of the nine factors were > 0.7 and ranged from 0.64 to 0.9. Correlations between eight factors showed a moderate relationship between the factors; ranging from 0.232 to 0.669. One factor, Stress recognition, had a weak and negative correlation with all other factors. Confirmatory factor analysis achieved an almost adequate model fit (χ2/df ratio 2.572; root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) 0.069; comparative fit index (CFI) 0.791). The MSC questionnaire demonstrated reasonable psychometric properties. Further refinement using exploratory factor analysis is, however, required to improve the questionnaire’s validity. This is the first known instrument to measure mediation safety climate in the UK and could be used to inform medication safety improvement strategies and monitor change in healthcare staff perceptions, related to medication safety, over time.

Citation

Kantilal, K., Auyeung, V., Whittlesea, C., & Oborne, A. (2015). Medication Safety Climate Questionnaire: Development and Psychometric Analysis. Journal of health science (El Monte, Calif.), 3(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.17265/2328-7136/2015.01.001

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 30, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Jan 30, 2015
• Publication Date: Jan 30, 2015
• Deposit Date: Aug 2, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 12, 2016
• Journal: Journal of Health Science
• Publisher: David Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 3
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 1-10
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.17265/2328-7136/2015.01.001