A validation study of the Slovak version of the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (with Slovak nurses)

Design: A cross-sectional validation study.

Methods: The study was conducted according to the STROBE checklist. Data were collected using the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPS) between December 2017 and July 2018. Registered nurses (n = 1,427) from 21 hospitals across Slovakia were included in the study. Construct validity and reliability of the instrument were tested using SPSS 25.0.

Results: Results of the Principal Component Analysis did not replicate the dimensionality or the factor structure of the original U.S. version of the instrument. Resulting from the factor analysis, an eight-factor structure was indicated. We identified two new factors in the HSOPS, namely: “Perception of patient safety, staffing-adequacy and staffing-blaming” and “Management strategy / Safety planning”. Some factors of the original version were combined into one, while others were excluded. The Cronbach alpha coefficient of the instrument was 0.88, ranging from 0.42 to 0.86 for particular subscales.

Conclusion: Psychometric testing of the HSOPS in the Slovak sociocultural context indicated acceptable reliability and construct validity of the tool. It is, therefore, considered promising as an instrument for measuring nurses’ perception of patient safety culture.