The effect of employees' perception of occupational safety culture and safety climate on their safe behaviors in public health organizations

This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of the perception of occupational safety culture and safety climate in the workplace of the personnel working in primary and secondary public health care institutions on their safe behaviors. This cross-sectional study was conducted between January 2022 and December 2023 with 247 employees who volunteered to participate in the study out of 255 employees working in all public health institutions affiliated to the Ministry of Health in Susurluk district of Balıkesir province. The dependent variables of the study are safety compliance and safety engagement behaviors. The research data were collected online via Google Forms with the "Personal Data Collection Form", "Safety Climate Scale", "Safety Culture Questionnaire" and "Safe Behavior Scale". Number, percentage, mean, standard deviation, median, minimum-maximum, Pearson correlation analysis, t test, ANOVA (Posthoc: Tukey HSD, Posthoc: Games Howell) / Kruskal Wallis H test (Bonferroni corrected), linear regression analysis were used to analyze the data. Significance level was accepted as p<0.05. 65.2% of the participants were female, the mean age was 35.79±9.55 years, and 57.1% had associate's and bachelor's degrees. 76.5% of the group worked in secondary care, 78.5% were health personnel, and 85.2% worked in units where contact with patients was more common. It was found that 27.1% of the employees had a professional experience of 1-5 years, 51.4% had a professional experience of 11 years or more, 49.8% had been working in the organization for 1-5 years, and 53.7% worked daytime shifts. The safety climate score of the participants was 3.52±0.91, and their perception level of safety climate was found to be high. It was found that the employees received the highest score from the reporting culture scale (4.25±1.25) and the lowest score from the fatalism scale (3.00±1.40) among the components of the safety culture questionnaire and their perception level of safety culture was high. The scores obtained from the safety compliance and safety participation sub-dimensions of the safe behavior scale were 4.09±0.86 and 3.91±0.92, respectively, and it was found that the group had high levels of safety compliance and safety participation behaviors. Those with an educational level of high school and below, those working in places where health care services were not provided and those working off-duty had significantly higher safety compliance and safety participation scores than the others (p<0.05). There was no significant difference between safety compliance and safety participation scores according to working in primary and secondary health care organizations (p>0.05). Safety awareness, reporting culture and knowledge of rights and obligations within the scope of OHS were found to affect the safety compliance score (F=82.178, p<0.001). It was observed that while safety awareness and reporting culture increased safety compliance behavior, knowledge of rights and obligations within the scope of OHS decreased it. Working department, safety awareness, employee involvement and reporting culture were found to affect safety participation (F=66.053, p<0.001). It was found that those working in departments where direct health care services were not provided and those with higher levels of safety awareness, employee involvement and reporting culture showed more safety participation behaviors. As a result, it was found that safe behavior increased as safety awareness and reporting culture increased, while safety climate did not affect safe behavior. Keywords: Safe behavior, safety climate, safety culture, occupational health and safety, healthcare sector.