Perception of infection control activities and patient safety culture among dental hygienists

Eun-Mi   Choi1,*   Hie-Jin   Noh1,*   Won-Gyun   Chung1   So-Jung   Mun1   

Department of dental Hygiene, The Graduate School, Yonsei University

Abstract

The study was to promote patient safety by analyzing the effect of dental hygienist's perception of patient safety culture on infection control activities. The study is based on a survey of 377 dental hygienists in total working in dental settings. The questionnaire consisted of 119 questions, including 34 questions on perception of patient safety culture, and 85 questions on infection control activities. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between the perception of patient safety culture and infection control activities. The data was analyzed using the SPSS version 20.0, and p<0.05 was adopted to decide on significance.The longer dental hygienists have worked n the dental settings, the more active they become in infection control activities. Among the different types of dental care settings, general (university) hospitals had the largest number of infection control activities, followed by dental clinics, and network dental clinics, in descending order. The dental settings possessing a higher number of dental hygienists were found to conduct more infection control activities than other dental settings. In addition, it was found that when a dental setting adopts a patient safety policy across all the units in the hospital, more systems and procedures for patient safety tend to be established, and that stricter management response to error leads to improvement of infection control activities. In order to enhance infection control activities, infection control activity programs should develop and implement periodic reinforcement of infection control education. regular monitoring of infection control activities.

Figures & Tables

Table 1. Characteristics of the participant