The Relationship of Medical Assistants’ Work Engagement with Their Concerns of Having Made an Important Medical Error: A Cross-Sectional Study

Adrian Loerbroks, Patricia Vu-Eickmann, Annegret Dreher, Viola Mambrey, Jessica Scharf and Peter Angerer
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Adrian Loerbroks: Institute of Occupational, Social, and Environmental Medicine, Centre for Health and Society, Faculty of Medicine, University of Düsseldorf, Universitätsstr. 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
Patricia Vu-Eickmann: Institute of Occupational, Social, and Environmental Medicine, Centre for Health and Society, Faculty of Medicine, University of Düsseldorf, Universitätsstr. 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
Annegret Dreher: Institute of Occupational, Social, and Environmental Medicine, Centre for Health and Society, Faculty of Medicine, University of Düsseldorf, Universitätsstr. 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
Viola Mambrey: Institute of Occupational, Social, and Environmental Medicine, Centre for Health and Society, Faculty of Medicine, University of Düsseldorf, Universitätsstr. 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
Jessica Scharf: Institute of Occupational, Social, and Environmental Medicine, Centre for Health and Society, Faculty of Medicine, University of Düsseldorf, Universitätsstr. 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
Peter Angerer: Institute of Occupational, Social, and Environmental Medicine, Centre for Health and Society, Faculty of Medicine, University of Düsseldorf, Universitätsstr. 1, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 11, 1-9

Abstract: Objectives: We aimed to examine associations of work engagement with self-reported concerns of having made medical errors among medical assistants. Methods: We used cross-sectional questionnaire data from 424 medical assistants in Germany (collected between March and May 2021). The nine-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale assessed the subdimensions vigor, dedication, and absorption. Participants further reported whether they were concerned that they had made an important medical error in the last three months. Work engagement scores were used both as categorized variables (i.e., highest tertile vs. remaining tertiles) and continuous variables (i.e., z-scores) and their associations with concerns to have made an important medical error were examined using multivariable logistic regression to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results: High vigor (versus low vigor) and high dedication (versus low dedication) were associated with substantially reduced odds of expressing concerns to have made an important medical error (OR = 0.19, 95%CI = 0.04–0.85 and OR = 0.25, 95%CI = 0.07–0.88, respectively), but absorption was not (OR = 1.10, 95%CI = 0.43–2.86). Analyses with z-scores confirmed this pattern of associations for vigor and absorption, but less so for dedication (OR = 0.72, 95%CI = 0.47–1.11). Conclusions: Vigor and possibly also dedication are inversely related to concerns of having made an important medical error. Our findings may suggest that promotion of these subdimensions of work engagement may improve patient safety.

Keywords: health care staff; Germany; medical assistants; medical errors; work engagement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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