TY - JOUR
T1 - Safety Culture and the Positive Association of Being a Primary Care Training Practice during COVID-19
T2 - The Results of the Multi-Country European PRICOV-19 Study
AU - Silva, Bianca
AU - Ožvačić Adžić, Zlata
AU - Vanden Bussche, Pierre
AU - Van Poel, Esther
AU - Seifert, Bohumil
AU - Heaster, Cindy
AU - Collins, Claire
AU - Tuz Yilmaz, Canan
AU - Knights, Felicity
AU - de la Cruz Gomez Pellin, Maria
AU - Astier Peña, Maria Pilar
AU - Stylianou, Neophytos
AU - Gomez Bravo, Raquel
AU - Cerovečki, Venija
AU - Klemenc Ketis, Zalika
AU - Willems, Sara
N1 - Funding Information:
The PRICOV-19 data collection was undertaken without funding in individual countries. A small grant was received by Ghent University from the European General Practice Research Network (EGPRN) to cover data cleaning; no grant number applies. Felicity Knights is supported by a Health Education England/NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship. The APC for this paper was funded with support from the University Foundation of Belgium.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors.
PY - 2022/9
Y1 - 2022/9
N2 - The day-to-day work of primary care (PC) was substantially changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Teaching practices needed to adapt both clinical work and teaching in a way that enabled the teaching process to continue, while maintaining safe and high-quality care. Our study aims to investigate the effect of being a training practice on a number of different outcomes related to the safety culture of PC practices. PRICOV-19 is a multi-country cross-sectional study that researches how PC practices were organized in 38 countries during the pandemic. Data was collected from November 2020 to December 2021. We categorized practices into training and non-training and selected outcomes relating to safety culture: safe practice management, community outreach, professional well-being and adherence to protocols. Mixed-effects regression models were built to analyze the effect of being a training practice for each of the outcomes, while controlling for relevant confounders. Of the participating practices, 2886 (56%) were non-training practices and 2272 (44%) were training practices. Being a training practice was significantly associated with a lower risk for adverse mental health events (OR: 0.83; CI: 0.70–0.99), a higher number of safety measures related to patient flow (Beta: 0.17; CI: 0.07–0.28), a higher number of safety incidents reported (RR: 1.12; CI: 1.06–1.19) and more protected time for meetings (Beta: 0.08; CI: 0.01–0.15). No significant associations were found for outreach initiatives, availability of triage information, use of a phone protocol or infection prevention measures and equipment availability. Training practices were found to have a stronger safety culture than non-training practices. These results have important policy implications, since involving more PC practices in education may be an effective way to improve quality and safety in general practice.
AB - The day-to-day work of primary care (PC) was substantially changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Teaching practices needed to adapt both clinical work and teaching in a way that enabled the teaching process to continue, while maintaining safe and high-quality care. Our study aims to investigate the effect of being a training practice on a number of different outcomes related to the safety culture of PC practices. PRICOV-19 is a multi-country cross-sectional study that researches how PC practices were organized in 38 countries during the pandemic. Data was collected from November 2020 to December 2021. We categorized practices into training and non-training and selected outcomes relating to safety culture: safe practice management, community outreach, professional well-being and adherence to protocols. Mixed-effects regression models were built to analyze the effect of being a training practice for each of the outcomes, while controlling for relevant confounders. Of the participating practices, 2886 (56%) were non-training practices and 2272 (44%) were training practices. Being a training practice was significantly associated with a lower risk for adverse mental health events (OR: 0.83; CI: 0.70–0.99), a higher number of safety measures related to patient flow (Beta: 0.17; CI: 0.07–0.28), a higher number of safety incidents reported (RR: 1.12; CI: 1.06–1.19) and more protected time for meetings (Beta: 0.08; CI: 0.01–0.15). No significant associations were found for outreach initiatives, availability of triage information, use of a phone protocol or infection prevention measures and equipment availability. Training practices were found to have a stronger safety culture than non-training practices. These results have important policy implications, since involving more PC practices in education may be an effective way to improve quality and safety in general practice.
KW - COVID-19
KW - general practice
KW - infectious disease
KW - medical education
KW - multi-country
KW - patient safety
KW - PRICOV-19
KW - primary health care
KW - quality of care
KW - safety culture
KW - vocational training
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85137560428&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/ijerph191710515
DO - 10.3390/ijerph191710515
M3 - Article
C2 - 36078230
AN - SCOPUS:85137560428
SN - 1661-7827
VL - 19
JO - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
JF - International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
IS - 17
M1 - 10515
ER -
