Introduction:

Knowing the perception of the safety climate within surgical services has become an important task to establish actions that reduce the risk of suffering adverse events during patient care.

Objective:

To characterize the safety climate in the surgical services of four health institutions in Santander.

Materials and methods:

Observational cross-sectional study. The Hospital Survey on Patient Safety instrument was applied. The results were reported as the means of positive and negative responses. The characteristics associated with the dimensions with the highest negative perception scores were analyzed.

Results:

164 workers participated. The dimensions with the highest positive perception were safe practices (84 %), staffing (83.2 %) and organizational learning (78.4 %); Dimensions with unfavorable perception were non-punitive response to error (40.2 %), workload (51.7 %), communication (54.3 %) and transitions and transfers between services (58.1 %). Association between a low perception in transitions and transfers between services with contracting for the provision of services and with the position of Specialist (Physician and Anesthesiologist) was found. Low scores in communication were associated with union hiring. No associated factors were found for the non-punitive response to error and workload dimensions.

Conclusions

In general, the perception of safety climate is considered positive, although there are opportunities for improvement. Factors such as type of hiring and position were more associated with negative perception. Workers feel judged when reporting adverse events.