The study assessed the relationship between organisational factors and compliance with patient safety incident reporting in Ghana, using two specialist hospitals as a standard.
A cross-sectional study design with a quantitative approach was applied to collect data to achieve the objectives of the study. A structured questionnaire was used in the survey to obtain data from 312 healthcare providers (doctors, nurses, pharmacy staff and medical laboratory staff) who were selected from two specialist hospitals using a convenience sampling method. Descriptive statistics, linear regression and one-way ANOVA were used to analyse the data using the Stata 16 statistical software package. The level of significance was accepted at p < 0.05 at a 95% confidence interval.
The level of compliance with patient safety incident reporting was moderately high at 69.3% (95% CI: 67.3–71.4). The sex (p = 0.015), educational level (p = 0.017) and training on skills, knowledge and attitudes for patient safety (p = 0.013) were the healthcare providers’ individual factors found to be associated with compliance with incident reporting. Healthcare organisational factors that were associated with compliance with incident reporting were organisational learning and continuous improvement (p = 0.002), communication about error (p = 0.008), communication openness (p = 0.001) and handoff and information exchange (p = 0.002).
The policymakers at the Ministry of Health/Ghana Health Service need to organise a national patient safety forum to discuss a comprehensive national strategy to reduce patient harm and to improve patient safety in all hospitals in Ghana.
