Testing the Reliability and Validity of a Measure of Safety Climate

Details

• Personal Author:
  Anderson E ; Gershon R ; Kochevar L ; McGovern, Patricia M. ; Vesley D
• Description:
  The lack of compliance with universal precautions (UP) is well documented across a wide variety of healthcare professions and has been reported both before and after the enactment of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Bloodborne Pathogens Standard. Gershon, Karkashian, and Felknor (1994) found that several factors correlated significantly with healthcare workers' lack of compliance with UP, including a measure of organizational safety climate (e.g., the employees' perception of their organizational culture and practices regarding safety). We conducted a secondary analysis using data from a cross-sectional survey of a convenience sample of 1,746 healthcare workers at risk of occupational exposure to bloodborne pathogens to assess the validity and reliability of Gershon's measure of safety climate. Findings revealed no relationship between safety climate and employees' gender, age, education, tenure in position, profession, hours worked per day, perceived risk, attitude toward risk, and training. An association was demonstrated between safety climate and (1) healthcare worker compliance with UP and (2) the availability of personal protective equipment, providing support for the construct validity of this measure of safety climate. These findings could be used by occupational health professionals to assess employees' perceptions of the safety culture and practices in the workplace and to guide the institution's risk management efforts in association with U.P. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Age Factors Blood Blood-Borne Pathogens Demography Health Personnel Hematologic Diseases Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Race Factors Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety Safety Management Sex Characteristics

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• Keywords:
  Age-factors Author Keywords: Adherence Programs Bloodborne-pathogens Demographic-characteristics Health-care Health-care-personnel Infection Control Occupational-exposure Racial-factors Risk-analysis Risk-factors Risk Management Safety-climate Safety-measures Sex-factors

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• ISSN:
  1062-2551
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Maryland ; Minnesota ; OSHA Region 3 ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  19-24
• Volume:
  22
• Issue:
  2
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20024585
• Citation:
  J Healthc Qual 2000 Mar/Apr; 22(2):19-24
• Contact Point Address:
  Elizabeth Anderson, Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center
• Email:
  eanders2@fairview.org
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2000
• Performing Organization:
  Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  19970401
• Source Full Name:
  Journal for Healthcare Quality
• End Date:
  20000929
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:58ab8a69854e31c20314dbcf88a663f8e5b4b00a51bce3e724362018d1651e0066d617d93102f7f2da0db612df237a95e30457cf831df7d5114c311455bff137
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/196327/cdc_196327_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 702.37 KB ]