Abstract:
Background: Patient safety incident reporting is widely recognized as one of the ways of
improving patient safety by learning from reported incidents and near misses. There is a
deficit in patient safety incident reporting in Ethiopian public hospitals. And there is very
limited information exists in Ethiopia, particularly in the study area of the Hadiya zone in
southern Ethiopia.
Objective: This study is aimed to assess patient safety incident reporting behavior and
associated factors among health care professionals working in public hospitals in the
Hadiya zone, southern Ethiopia, 2021.
Method: Cross-sectional study design was used among 339 health care professionals in
Hadiya zone hospitals from August 1-30, 2021. A simple random sampling technique
was used to select study participants, and a structured self-administered questionnaire
was used to collect the data. Data was entered into Epi-data and then exported to the
statistical package for social sciences version 20 software. Descriptive and inferential
statistical analysis was done. Variables with a p-value < 0.05 with a 95% CI were
considered statistically significant.
RESULT: This study included 334 with a response rate of 98.5 %. The overall response
rate of incident reporting behavior was 28.7% (95% CI: 24.6, 33.2). Nurses 4.9 (AOR =
4.9, 95% CI: 1.5, 16), on job training (AOR=2.9, 95% CI: 1.4, 6.02), having team within
the units (AOR =2.8, 95%CI: 1.25, 6.29), communication openness (AOR=2.73, 95% CI:
1.42, 5.24), management support (AOR=2.8, 95%CI: 1.4, 5.66), feedback to error (AOR
= 2.1, 95%, CI: 1.07,4.07), fear of administration sanction (AOR=0.49, 95%CI: 0.25,
0.97) and time taken for reporting (AOR=0.37, 95%CI: 0.16, 0.86) have significantly
associated to incident reporting behavior.
Conclusion and Recommendation: This study revealed that the patient safety incident
reporting behavior of the health care professionals is 28.7%. Therefore, managers give
feedback on incidents, prepare continuous training programs and simplify them to have
communication openness to improve patient safety incident reporting
