Analysis and modelling of safety culture in a Mexican hospital by Markov chains

Introduction The objective of this study was to analyse and model the safety culture with Markov chains, as well as predicting and/or prioritizing over time the evolutionary behaviour of the safety culture of the health's staff in one Mexican hospital. Method The Markov chain theory has been employed in the analysis, and the input data has been obtained from a previous study based on the Safety Attitude Questionnaire (CAS-MX-II), by considering the following 6 dimensions: safety climate, teamwork, job satisfaction, recognition of stress, perception of management, and work environment. Results The results highlighted the predictions and/or prioritisation of the approximate time for the possible integration into the evolutionary behaviour of the safety culture as regards the “slightly agree” (Likert scale) for: safety climate (in 12 years; 24.13%); teamwork (8 years; 34.61%); job satisfaction (11 years; 52.41%); recognition of the level of stress (8 years; 19.35%); and perception of the direction (22 years; 27.87%). The work environment dimension was unable to determine the behaviour of staff information, i.e. no information cultural roots were obtained. Conclusion In general, it has been shown that there are weaknesses in the safety culture of the hospital, which is an opportunity to suggest changes to the mandatory policies in order to strengthen it.