Quality of healthcare services and its relationship with patient safety culture and nurse-physician professional communication

Background: This study investigated quality of healthcare services from patients’ perspectives and its relationship with patient safety culture and nurse-physician professional communication. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 300 surgery patients and 101 nurses caring them in a public hospital in Tabriz–Iran. Data were collected using the service quality measurement scale (SERVQUAL), hospital survey on patient safety culture (HSOPSC) and nursephysician professional communication questionnaire. Results: The highest and lowest mean (±SD) scores of the patients’ perception on the healthcare services quality belonged to the assurance 13.92 (±3.55) and empathy 6.78 (±1.88) domains, respectively. With regard to the patient safety culture, the mean percentage of positive answers ranged from 45.87% for “non-punitive response to errors” to 68.21% for “organizational continuous learning” domains. The highest and lowest mean (±SD) scores for the nursephysician professional communication were obtained for “cooperation” 3.44 (±0.35) and “nonparticipative decision-making” 2.84 (±0.34) domains, respectively. The “frequency of reported errors by healthcare professionals” (B = -4.20, 95% CI = -7.14 to -1.27, P 0.01) and “respect and sharing of information” (B = 7.69, 95% CI=4.01 to 11.36, P 0.001) predicted the patients’ perceptions of the quality of healthcare services. Conclusion: Organizational culture in dealing with medical error should be changed to nonpunitive response. Change in safety culture towards reporting of errors, effective communication and teamwork between healthcare professionals are recommended.