Professional experience and age as a contribution to the safety climate in the surgical center: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Objective: to identify the association between length of professional experience and age with the safety climate domains of professionals in the surgical center. Method: this is a cross-sectional study conducted with 179 professionals from the multidisciplinary team of the university surgical center located in Rio de Janeiro, using the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire/Surgical Center. The association of variables was determined by the chi-squared test (p<0.05). Results: there is an association between length of experience and the safety climate domains of: “Perception of management” (p-value 0.039); “Perception of job performance” (p-value 0.014); and “Perception of stress” (p-value <0.001). An association for age is observed with “Perception of job performance” (p-value <0.001) and “Perception of stress” (p-value <0.001). Conclusion: it was observed that professional experience and age were associated with the safety climate, and so these variables can help surgical center managers to outline better strategies for allocating human resources in order to promote more effective and safe surgical care.