Gochenour, Daniel and Everhart, Jeannine and Poulsen, Chase and Wright, Doug Assessment of Patient Safety Attitudes of Respiratory Therapists who are Members of the Professional Association in Virginia. 2020. Radford University, Doctoral Capstone Project. Radford University Scholars' Repository.
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Abstract
There is limited data reporting patient safety attitudes of respiratory therapists in the United States. Positive patient safety attitudes have been associated with improved outcome measures such as employee retention, reduction in medication errors, and decreased length of ICU stay. This study looked to report patient safety attitudes of respiratory therapists and determine attributes that lead to having a more positive patient safety attitude. To assess patient safety attitudes, a non-experimental, cross-sectional study design using the safety attitudes questionnaire (SAQ), a validated survey tool, was employed. To be included in the study, participants were required to be respiratory therapists and a member of the professional association in Virginia. The primary recruitment strategy for the study was online message board announcements which generated an email notification. A postcard mailer and social media posts were also utilized for recruitment. Participants volunteered to be included in the study by answering the demographic and the SAQ survey questions electronically using the survey tool Qualtrics. Once the survey was closed, the data was transferred into SPSS for statistical analysis. Data analysis was completed by converting the five-point Likert scale ranging from “Disagree Strongly” to “Agree Strongly” to a 100-point scale. The SAQ survey has six patient safety domains in the areas of teamwork climate, job satisfaction, perception of management, safety climate, working conditions, and stress recognition. By obtaining the mean scores of each domain, statistical analysis was completed by assessing the attributes of having 10 or more years of experience, being 40 years old or older, having a baccalaureate or graduate degree in respiratory therapy, having a baccalaureate or graduate degree in any field, obtaining a specialty credential, or earning the RRT credential. Internal consistency was evaluated by using the Cronbach’s alpha method. Each hypothesis was tested using the Mann-Whitney U test to determine statistical significance along with a multiple regression analysis to determine which attributes are associated with having a more positive patient safety attitude. There were 1,144 members in the Virginia professional association at the time of recruitment. Of this population, 145 completed responses were received for data analysis. The survey data were determined to have a high overall internal consistency with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.933 when assessing all scale item questions. Overall, the most important finding of this study was the discovery that obtaining a specialty credential lead to a more positive patient safety attitude score by scoring nearly 5-points higher on the total score. Having a specialty credential accounted for 12.9% of the variation in patient safety attitude scores determined by an R2 = .129. The results of the statistical analysis showed having a specialty credential predicted having a more positive patient safety attitude (F (8, 135) = 2.506, p = .014). Other significant results showed respiratory therapists who were 40 years old or older had a statistically significant difference in having a positive patient safety attitude in the domains of teamwork climate (p = .034), job satisfaction (p = .022), perceptions of management (p = .001), and working conditions (p = .002). Respiratory therapists who had 10 years of experience or more had a statistical significance in having a positive patient safety attitude in the domains of safety climate (p = .043), perceptions of management (p = .005), and working conditions (p = .047). Lastly, respiratory therapists who had achieved a specialty credential had a statistically significant difference in having a positive patient safety attitude in the domains of safety climate (p = .038), stress recognition (p = .028), and perceptions of management (p = .042). The results of this study determined a significant difference in patient safety attitudes of respiratory therapists who have obtained a specialty credential. These results are similar to data reported from the nursing literature on the benefits of obtaining a specialty credential. Further research should be conducted to determine the importance of earning a specialty credential, obtaining a baccalaureate or graduate degree in respiratory therapy, as well as obtaining the RRT credential. Investigation into these attributes on a national level could help to provide evidence-based recommendation for education and credentialling for respiratory therapists.
| Item Type: | Doctoral Capstone Project |
|---|---|
| Subjects: | R Medicine > RZ Other systems of medicine |
| Divisions: | Radford University > Waldron College of Health and Human Services > Public Health Program |
| Date Deposited: | 14 Nov 2021 22:24 |
| Last Modified: | 19 Apr 2023 16:54 |
| URI: | http://wagner.radford.edu/id/eprint/670 |
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