Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1893/28297
Appears in Collections:Faculty of Health Sciences and Sport Journal Articles
Peer Review Status: Refereed
Title: Patient safety, satisfaction, and quality of hospital care: cross sectional surveys of nurses and patients in 12 countries in Europe and the United States
Author(s): Aiken, Linda H
Sermeus, Walter
Van den Heede, Koen
Sloane, Douglas M
Busse, Reinhard
McKee, Martin
Rafferty, Anne Marie
Griffiths, Peter
Moreno-Casbas, Teresa
Tishelman, Carol
Scott, Anne P B
Brzostek, Tomasz
Kinnunen, Juha
Schwendimann, Rene
McIntosh, Bryan
Keywords: Patient safety
Satisfaction
Hospital care
Quality
Surveys
Europe
United States
Issue Date: 20-Mar-2012
Date Deposited: 21-Nov-2018
Citation: Aiken LH, Sermeus W, Van den Heede K, Sloane DM, Busse R, McKee M, Rafferty AM, Griffiths P, Moreno-Casbas T, Tishelman C, Scott APB, Brzostek T, Kinnunen J, Schwendimann R & McIntosh B (2012) Patient safety, satisfaction, and quality of hospital care: cross sectional surveys of nurses and patients in 12 countries in Europe and the United States. <i>BMJ</i>, 344 (7851), Art. No.: e1717. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e1717
Abstract: Objective To determine whether hospitals with a good organisation of care (such as improved nurse staffing and work environments) can affect patient care and nurse workforce stability in European countries. Design Cross sectional surveys of patients and nurses. Setting Nurses were surveyed in general acute care hospitals (488 in 12 European countries; 617 in the United States); patients were surveyed in 210 European hospitals and 430 US hospitals. Participants 33 659 nurses and 11 318 patients in Europe; 27 509 nurses and more than 120 000 patients in the US. Main outcome measures Nurse outcomes (hospital staffing, work environments, burnout, dissatisfaction, intention to leave job in the next year, patient safety, quality of care), patient outcomes (satisfaction overall and with nursing care, willingness to recommend hospitals). Results The percentage of nurses reporting poor or fair quality of patient care varied substantially by country (from 11% (Ireland) to 47% (Greece)),as did rates for nurses who gave their hospital a poor or failing safety grade (4% (Switzerland) to 18% (Poland)). We found high rates of nurse burnout (10% (Netherlands) to 78% (Greece)), job dissatisfaction (11%(Netherlands) to 56% (Greece)), and intention to leave (14% (US) to 49% (Finland, Greece)). Patients’ high ratings of their hospitals also varied considerably (35% (Spain) to 61% (Finland, Ireland)), as did rates of patients willing to recommend their hospital (53% (Greece) to 78%(Switzerland)). Improved work environments and reduced ratios of patients to nurses were associated with increased care quality and patient satisfaction. In European hospitals, after adjusting for hospital and nurse characteristics, nurses with better work environments were half as likely to report poor or fair care quality (adjusted odds ratio 0.56,95% confidence interval 0.51 to 0.61) and give their hospitals poor or failing grades on patient safety (0.50, 0.44 to 0.56). Each additional patient per nurse increased the odds of nurses reporting poor or fair quality care (1.11, 1.07 to 1.15) and poor or failing safety grades (1.10,1.05 to 1.16). Patients in hospitals with better work environments were more likely to rate their hospital highly (1.16, 1.03 to 1.32) and recommend their hospitals (1.20, 1.05 to 1.37), whereas those with higher ratios of patients to nurses were less likely to rate them highly(0.94, 0.91 to 0.97) or recommend them (0.95, 0.91 to 0.98). Results were similar in the US. Nurses and patients agreed on which hospitals provided good care and could be recommended. Conclusions Deficits in hospital care quality were common in all countries. Improvement of hospital work environments might be a relatively low cost strategy to improve safety and quality in hospital care and to increase patient satisfaction.
DOI Link: 10.1136/bmj.e1717
Rights: This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non commercial and is otherwise in compliance with the license. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/2.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode.
Notes: Additional co-authors: Maud Heinen, Dimitris Zikos, Ingeborg Strømseng Sjetne, Herbert L Smith, Ann Kutney-Lee, and the RN4CAST consortium. Bryan McIntosh is listed as part of the RN4CAST consortium/
Licence URL(s): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

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