New doctors are less likely to speak up about a colleague’s unprofessional behaviour than they are about traditional threats to patients’ safety, even when they perceive high potential for harm to patients, a US study has found.
The study found that junior doctors reported “fear of conflict” as a barrier to speaking up about unprofessional behaviour. The authors said that their findings, published in BMJ Quality and Safety, showed “important safety deficits” and the need to provide more supportive clinical environments to foster open communication.
…continue reading Junior doctors hesitate to speak up over unprofessional behaviour, study finds, on The BMJ Careers, 05 Jun 2017.
2017 Study Abstract
Background
Open communication between healthcare professionals about care concerns, also known as ‘speaking up’, is essential to patient safety.
Objective
Compare interns’ and residents’ experiences, attitudes and factors associated with speaking up about traditional versus professionalism-related safety threats.
Design
Anonymous, cross-sectional survey.
Setting
Six US academic medical centres, 2013–2014.
Participants
1800 medical and surgical interns and residents (47% responded).
Measurements
Attitudes about, barriers and facilitators for, and self-reported experience with speaking up. Likelihood of speaking up and the potential for patient harm in two vignettes. Safety Attitude Questionnaire (SAQ) teamwork and safety scales; and Speaking Up Climate for Patient Safety (SUC-Safe) and Speaking Up Climate for Professionalism (SUC-Prof) scales.
Results
Respondents more commonly observed unprofessional behaviour (75%, 628/837) than traditional safety threats (49%, 410/837); p<0.001, but reported speaking up about unprofessional behaviour less commonly (46%, 287/628 vs 71%, 291/410; p<0.001). Respondents more commonly reported fear of conflict as a barrier to speaking up about unprofessional behaviour compared with traditional safety threats (58%, 482/837 vs 42%, 348/837; p<0.001). Respondents were also less likely to speak up to an attending physician in the professionalism vignette than the traditional safety vignette, even when they perceived high potential patient harm (20%, 49/251 vs 71%, 179/251; p<0.001). Positive perceptions of SAQ teamwork climate and SUC-Safe were independently associated with speaking up in the traditional safety vignette (OR 1.90, 99% CI 1.36 to 2.66 and 1.46, 1.02 to 2.09, respectively), while only a positive perception of SUC-Prof was associated with speaking up in the professionalism vignette (1.76, 1.23 to 2.50).
Conclusions
Interns and residents commonly observed unprofessional behaviour yet were less likely to speak up about it compared with traditional safety threats even when they perceived high potential patient harm. Measuring SUC-Safe, and particularly SUC-Prof, may fill an existing gap in safety culture assessment.
Sources and Press Releases
- Speaking up about traditional and professionalism-related patient safety threats: a national survey of interns and residents, NCBI PubMed PMID: 28442609, 2017 Apr 25. Full study BMJ Quality & Safety, DOI: 10.1136/bmjqs-2016-006284.
- Image credit @bmj_latest 7 june 2017.