Using the Human Factors Framework to understand the origins of medication safety problems in community pharmacy: A qualitative study.

Background: Community pharmacy practice in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) faces many challenges. In KSA, there is a lack of empirical research about medication safety in this setting.

Objective: To explore the safety problems associated with medication supply from community pharmacies in KSA and compare different stakeholder perspectives.

Patient safety climate and worker safety behaviours in acute hospitals in Scotland.

Objectives: To obtain a measure of hospital safety climate from a sample of National Health Service (NHS) acute hospitals in Scotland and to test whether these scores were associated with worker safety behaviors, and patient and worker injuries.

Methods: Data were from 1,866 NHS clinical staff in six Scottish acute hospitals. A Scottish Hospital Safety Questionnaire measured hospital safety climate (Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture), worker safety behaviors, and worker and patient injuries.

The effect of proximity, Tall Man lettering, and time pressure on accurate visual perception of drug names.

Objective: The aim of this study is to assess the effect of proximity and time pressure on accurate and effective visual search during medication selection from a computer screen.

Background: The presence of multiple similar objects in proximity to a target object increases the difficulty of a visual search. Visual similarity between drug names can also lead to selection error.

The impact of patient aggression on community pharmacists: a critical incident study.

Background: The impact of patient aggression on healthcare staff has been an important research topic over the past decade. However, the majority of that research has focused primarily on hospital staff, with only a minority of studies examining staff in primary care settings such as pharmacies or doctors' surgeries. Moreover, whilst there is an indication that patient aggression can impact the quality of patient care, no research has been conducted to examine how the impact of aggression on staff could affect patient safety.

The effect of risk perception on public preferences and willingness to pay for reductions in the health risks posed by toxic cyanobacterial blooms.

Mass populations of toxin-producing cyanobacteria are an increasingly common occurrence in inland and coastal waters used for recreational purposes. These mass populations pose serious risks to human and animal health and impose potentially significant economic costs on society. In this study, we used contingent valuation (CV) methods to elicit public willingness to pay (WTP) for reductions in the morbidity risks posed by blooms of toxin-producing cyanobacteria in Loch Leven, Scotland.

Dealing with aggressive methadone patients in community pharmacy: a critical incident study.

Background: Community pharmacists are an important link between methadone patients and the health service in the United Kingdom. However, many pharmacists feel ill prepared to deal with methadone patients, with aggressive behavior a particular concern.

Objective: To assess the perceived impact of methadone patient aggression on pharmacy practice.

Social and moral norm differences among Portuguese 1st and 6th year medical students towards their intention to comply with hand hygiene.

This study examines social and moral norms towards the intention to comply with hand hygiene among Portuguese medical students from 1st and 6th years (N = 175; 121 from the 1st year, 54 from the 6th year). The study extended the theory of planned behaviour theoretical principles and hypothesised that both subjective and moral norms will be the best predictors of 1st and 6th year medical students' intention to comply with hand hygiene; however, these predictors ability to explain intention variance will change according to medical students' school year. Results indicated that the subjective norm, whose referent focuses on professors, is a relevant predictor of 1st year medical students' intention, while the subjective norm that emphasises the relevance of colleagues predicts the intentions of medical students from the 6th year.

Retrospective analysis of DATIX dispensing error reports from Scottish NHS hospitals.

Aim: The primary objective was to analyse reported dispensing errors, and contributing factors, in Scottish National Health Service hospitals by coding and quantifying error reports from the DATIX patient-safety software. The secondary objective was to gather managerial responses to dispensing error in order to gain a perspective on interventions already in place.

Methods: Incident reports collected from 23 Scottish hospitals over a 5-year period were analysed retrospectively.

Team situation awareness and the anticipation of patient progress during ICU rounds.

Background: The ability of medical teams to develop and maintain team situation awareness (team SA) is crucial for patient safety. Limited research has investigated team SA within clinical environments. This study reports the development of a method for investigating team SA during the intensive care unit (ICU) round and describes the results.

Hospital survey on patient safety culture: psychometric analysis on a Scottish sample.

Objective: To investigate the psychometric properties of the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture on a Scottish NHS data set.

Methods: The data were collected from 1969 clinical staff (estimated 22% response rate) from one acute hospital from each of seven Scottish Health boards. Using a split-half validation technique, the data were randomly split; an exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the calibration data set, and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on the validation data set to investigate and check the original US model fit in a Scottish sample.

Using the Job Demands-Resources model to investigate risk perception, safety climate and job satisfaction in safety critical organizations.

Using the Job Demands-Resources model (JD-R) as a theoretical framework, this study investigated the relationship between risk perception as a job demand and psychological safety climate as a job resource with regard to job satisfaction in safety critical organizations. In line with the JD-R model, it was hypothesized that high levels of risk perception is related to low job satisfaction and that a positive perception of safety climate is related to high job satisfaction. In addition, it was hypothesized that safety climate moderates the relationship between risk perception and job satisfaction.

Investment in workforce health: exploring the implications for workforce safety climate and commitment.

The relationship between investment in employee health and non-health outcomes has received little research attention. Drawing from social exchange and climate theory, the current study uses a multilevel approach to examine the implications of worksite health investment for worksite safety and health climate and employee safety compliance and commitment to the worksite. Data were collected from 1932 personnel working on 31 offshore installations operating in UK waters.

Strategies for monitoring and managing mass populations of toxic cyanobacteria in recreational waters: a multi-interdisciplinary approach.

Mass populations of toxin-producing cyanobacteria commonly develop in fresh-, brackish- and marine waters and effective strategies for monitoring and managing cyanobacterial health risks are required to safeguard animal and human health. A multi-interdisciplinary study, including two UK freshwaters with a history of toxic cyanobacterial blooms, was undertaken to explore different approaches for the identification, monitoring and management of potentially-toxic cyanobacteria and their associated risks. The results demonstrate that (i) cyanobacterial bloom occurrence can be predicted at a local- and national-scale using process-based and statistical models; (ii) cyanobacterial concentration and distribution in waterbodies can be monitored using remote sensing, but minimum detection limits need to be evaluated; (iii) cyanotoxins may be transferred to spray-irrigated root crops; and (iv) attitudes and perceptions towards risks influence the public's preferences and willingness-to-pay for cyanobacterial health risk reductions in recreational waters.

Year 1 medical undergraduates' knowledge of and attitudes to medical error.

Context: To improve patient safety, medical students should be taught about human error and the factors influencing adverse events. The optimal evaluation of new curricula for patient safety requires tools for baseline measurement of medical students' attitudes and knowledge.

Objectives: The aim of the study was to design and evaluate a questionnaire for measuring the attitudes of Year 1 medical students to patient safety and medical error.

Developing a team performance framework for the intensive care unit.

Objective: There is a growing literature on the relationship between teamwork and patient outcomes in intensive care, providing new insights into the skills required for effective team performance. The purpose of this review is to consolidate the most robust findings from this research into an intensive care unit (ICU) team performance framework.

Data Sources: Studies investigating teamwork within the ICU using PubMed, Science Direct, and Web of Knowledge databases.

Patient safety: helping medical students understand error in healthcare.

Objective: To change the culture of healthcare organisations and improve patient safety, new professionals need to be taught about adverse events and how to trap and mitigate against errors. A literature review did not reveal any patient safety courses in the core undergraduate medical curriculum. Therefore a new module was designed and piloted.

Facets of job effort in bus driver health: deconstructing "effort" in the effort-reward imbalance model.

This research aimed to test the relative value of developing and using job-specific facets of effort and testing them using J. Siegrist's (1996) effort-reward imbalance (ERI) theory to extend understanding of how one might determine job strain in urban bus driving. In addition, the interactive effects of the ERI model are further investigated to address the lack of research into the relationships of the model's constructs.

Explicit and implicit trust within safety culture.

Safety culture is an important topic for managers in high-hazard industries because a deficient safety culture has been linked to organizational accidents. Many researchers have argued that trust plays a central role in models of safety culture but trust has rarely been measured in safety culture/climate studies. This article used explicit (direct) and implicit (indirect) measures to assess trust at a UK gas plant.

Safety in shipping: the human element.

Introduction: There are numerous diverse papers that have addressed issues within maritime safety; to date there has been no comprehensive review of this literature to aggregate the causal factors within accidents in shipping and surmise current knowledge.

Methods: This paper reviewed the literature on safety in three key areas: common themes of accidents, the influence of human error, and interventions to make shipping safer. The review included 20 studies of seafaring across the following areas: fatigue, stress, health, situation awareness, teamwork, decision-making, communication, automation, and safety culture.