Table 1

Patient safety climate surveys: summary of characteristics

	Name of survey
	SLOAPS	PSCHO	VHA PSCQ	HSOPS	CSS	SAQ	SCS	MSSA	HTSSCS
SLOAPS, Strategies for Leadership: An Organizational Approach to Patient Safety;^16,^24,³¹ PSCHO, Patient Safety Cultures in Healthcare Organizations;^25,³² VHA PSCQ, Veterans Administration Patient Safety Culture Questionnaire¹⁹ (McKnight and Lee, unpublished data, September 2001); HSOPS, Hospital Survey on Patient Safety;^21,³³ CSS, Culture of Safety Survey;¹⁸ SAQ, Safety Attitudes Questionnaire;^22,^23,^26,^34–³⁹ SCS, Safety Climate Survey⁴⁰ (10 item version called Safety Climate Scale^24,⁴⁰); MSSA, Medication Safety Self Assessment;^17,⁴¹ HTSSCS, Hospital Transfusion Service Safety Culture Survey.²⁰
Setting appropriate for use	General	General	General	General	General	Multiple units	Multiple units	Pharmacy	Transfusion
General characteristics
To be completed by individuals	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
No of items (demographics not included)	58	82/32	71	42	34	60	19	194	27
Uses 5-point Likert scale	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Measures implementation of actions	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No
Common dimensions covered
Leadership	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partial
Policies and procedures	Yes	Partial	Yes	Partial	No	Partial	Partial	Yes	Partial
Staffing	Yes	Partial	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes	Partial	Yes	No
Communication	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Reporting	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Total no of dimensions	9	5 (16)	13	12	4	6		20	8
Psychometrics performed
Item analysis	No	Partial	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Partial	No	Yes
Exploratory factor analysis	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
Confirmatory factor analysis	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Partial	No	Yes
Cronbach’s alpha	No	No	0.45–0.90	0.63–0.83	“Poor”	0.68–0.81	“Good”	0.44–0.84	0.61–0.85
Test/retest reliability	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Partial	No	No
Correlated composite scores across dimensions	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Partial	Yes
Analysis of variance across services	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes
How used in studies
Intra institutional comparisons	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Inter institutional comparisons	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes	Yes
Inter industry comparisons	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Partial	No	No
Association with reporting rates	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
Association with process measures	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Association with patient outcomes	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No
Pre v post intervention studies	Partial	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No