Insights into the climate of safety towards the prevention of falls among hospital staff

Aims and objectives. To explore the climate of safety towards falls prevention among frontline hospital staff. Background. Falls represent a serious threat to patient safety in hospitals. A positive safety climate is vital in healthcare organisations to promote safe care and reduce patient harm, yet little is known about the safety climate towards falls prevention among frontline staff in the hospital setting. Design. An observational descriptive study. Methods. Frontline staff working in five acute and subacute wards at two metropolitan hospitals in Australia were sampled. Safety climate towards falls prevention was measured using the Patient Safety Climate in Healthcare Organizations survey. The item-specific, dimension-specific and overall percentage of problematic responses were calculated, based on the frequency of responses inconsistent with a positive safety climate. Higher percentage of problematic responses values reflects a weaker safety climate. Results. The overall percentage of problematic responses towards falls prevention was 15%. Dimensions that were most inconsistent with a positive safety climate included 'provision of safe care' (percentage of problematic responses 42.1%) and 'unit recognition and support for safety efforts' (percentage of problematic responses 26.9%). The overall and dimension-specific percentage of problematic responses scores did not vary by hospital, or between nursing and allied health disciplines. Conclusions. The study provides important insights into the safety climate towards falls prevention among frontline hospital staff. Further research is required to improve the problematic areas of safety climate towards falls prevention, to promote and deliver safe patient care by hospital healthcare teams. Relevance to clinical practice. Identifying problematic areas in the safety climate towards falls prevention is a first step in guiding the development of targeted strategies to promote a positive atmosphere towards preventing falls and reducing patient harm in the hospital setting.