Development and Psychometric Validation of the Hospital Medication System Safety Assessment Questionnaire.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Patient Safety Research
• Psychometric Validation

Background:

• Medication incidents are a persistent safety issue in hospitals.
• Current integrated medication systems show suboptimal safety performance.
• Valid instruments are needed to assess hospital medication system safety.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and psychometrically validate the Hospital Medication System Safety Assessment Questionnaire (HMSSA-Q).
• To create a tool for assessing the safety of hospital medication systems and processes in Portugal.

Main Methods:

• Literature review and expert panel consultations for initial development.
• Pilot study in 95 Portuguese hospitals.
• Principal component factor analysis for construct validity and Cronbach's alpha for reliability.

Main Results:

• The HMSSA-Q is structured into five domains: Organizational Environment, Safe Prescribing, Pharmacy Safety, Preparation/Administration Safety, and Patient Education.
• Factor analysis confirmed the internal structure of each domain.
• The overall scale demonstrated excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.97), with domain values ranging from 0.86 to 0.94.

Conclusions:

• The HMSSA-Q is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing hospital medication system safety.
• The questionnaire can be utilized as an innovative management tool to improve patient safety.