Safety Culture and the Positive Association of Being a Primary Care Training Practice during COVID-19: The Results of the Multi-Country European PRICOV-19 Study

Bianca Silva (), Zlata Ožvačić Adžić (), Pierre Vanden Bussche, Esther Van Poel, Bohumil Seifert, Cindy Heaster, Claire Collins, Canan Tuz Yilmaz, Felicity Knights, Maria de la Cruz Gomez Pellin, Maria Pilar Astier Peña, Neophytos Stylianou, Raquel Gomez Bravo, Venija Cerovečki, Zalika Klemenc Ketis and Sara Willems
Additional contact information
Bianca Silva: Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
Zlata Ožvačić Adžić: Department of Family Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
Pierre Vanden Bussche: Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
Esther Van Poel: Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
Bohumil Seifert: Institute of General Practice, First Medical Faculty, Charles University, CZ-121 08 Prague, Czech Republic
Cindy Heaster: Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Riga Stradiņš University, LV-1007 Riga, Latvia
Claire Collins: Research Centre, Irish College of General Practitioners, D02 XR68 Dublin, Ireland
Canan Tuz Yilmaz: Family Medicine Department, Bursa Uludag University, 16130 Bursa, Turkey
Felicity Knights: Population Health Research Institute, St George’s University of London, London SW17 0RE, UK
Maria de la Cruz Gomez Pellin: Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria
Maria Pilar Astier Peña: Primary Health Centre Universitas, Aragon Health Services, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Neophytos Stylianou: RTD Talos, 2404 Nicosia, Cyprus
Raquel Gomez Bravo: CHNP, Rehaklinik, L-9002 Ettelbruck, Luxembourg
Venija Cerovečki: Department of Family Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
Zalika Klemenc Ketis: Ljubljana Community Health Centre, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
Sara Willems: Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 17, 1-15

Abstract: The day-to-day work of primary care (PC) was substantially changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Teaching practices needed to adapt both clinical work and teaching in a way that enabled the teaching process to continue, while maintaining safe and high-quality care. Our study aims to investigate the effect of being a training practice on a number of different outcomes related to the safety culture of PC practices. PRICOV-19 is a multi-country cross-sectional study that researches how PC practices were organized in 38 countries during the pandemic. Data was collected from November 2020 to December 2021. We categorized practices into training and non-training and selected outcomes relating to safety culture: safe practice management, community outreach, professional well-being and adherence to protocols. Mixed-effects regression models were built to analyze the effect of being a training practice for each of the outcomes, while controlling for relevant confounders. Of the participating practices, 2886 (56%) were non-training practices and 2272 (44%) were training practices. Being a training practice was significantly associated with a lower risk for adverse mental health events (OR: 0.83; CI: 0.70–0.99), a higher number of safety measures related to patient flow (Beta: 0.17; CI: 0.07–0.28), a higher number of safety incidents reported (RR: 1.12; CI: 1.06–1.19) and more protected time for meetings (Beta: 0.08; CI: 0.01–0.15). No significant associations were found for outreach initiatives, availability of triage information, use of a phone protocol or infection prevention measures and equipment availability. Training practices were found to have a stronger safety culture than non-training practices. These results have important policy implications, since involving more PC practices in education may be an effective way to improve quality and safety in general practice.

Keywords: safety culture; patient safety; quality of care; primary health care; COVID-19; medical education; vocational training; PRICOV-19; infectious disease; multi-country; general practice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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