Linking transformational leadership, patient safety culture and work engagement in home care services.

Aim: To assess the relationship between transformational leadership, job demands, job resources, patient safety culture and work engagement in home care services.

Design: Cross-sectional survey.

Methods: Healthcare professionals in Norwegian home care services participated in the study ( = 139). Multiple regression analyses with patient safety culture and work engagement as outcomes and transformational leadership, job demands, job resources as predictors were conducted.

Results: The transformational leadership model explained 35.7% of the variance in patient safety culture. Adding job demands and resources and work engagement to the model increased the explained variance to 53.5%. The job resource "skill utilization" was the strongest predictor of work engagement. The full model with all predictor variables explained 28.2% of work engagement.

Conclusion: Transformational leadership has a significant impact on patient safety culture and work engagement in home care services. Employees' perceptions of job demands, available resources and engagement also affect patient safety culture.