Using the ARRQ HSOPC Safety Culture Questionnaire in UK Healthcare: findings and factor structure

We report findings from the use of the Hospital Safety Patient Safety Culture questionnaire within a large UK NHS Trust. Previous research using the questionnaire has been conducted within the USA and, in common with other patient safety culture questionnaires, limited data relating to the psychometric properties (e.g.,scale reliabilities, factor structure) of the use of these types of audits within the UK is available. The questionnaire was administered at three hospitals and 1,461 questionnaires were returned (37% response rate). The findings of a confirmatory factor analysis showed a weak fit to the original HSOPC model. In addition, over half of the internal reliabilities from the UK sample were less than 0.7. The implications of using the HSOPC questionnaire within the UK are discussed in the light of these findings.