Assessment of Safety Culture: A Singapore Residential Aged Care Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Despite a significant amount of attention towards the safety and quality of acute care, little focus has been paid to the residential aged care sector, especially in the Asian region. This research aimed to assess the safety and quality culture within two nursing homes in Singapore. Methods: A cross-sectional study used a validated 42-item Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture (NHSPSC) tool. Minor linguistic adjustments were made to the tool, and its internal reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha. Results: The Cronbach’s alpha values for the 12 PSC Composites ranged from 0.519 to 0.781, nine PSC Composites were >0.6 (adequate), indicating NHSPSC had acceptable internal reliability in the Singapore context. Of the 12 PSC Composites calculated for the two Singapore nursing homes, six were >90th percentile, four were >75th percentile and two >50th percentile. Conclusion: The NHSPSC tool provided an assessment of residential aged care safety and quality culture of the two nursing homes in Singapore. In general, the staff at the nursing homes in Singapore perceived a higher percentile residential safety culture compared to the US Comparative Database. The findings of this study demonstrated the importance of communication openness in residential safety culture.