It is well known that a certain guarantor of the effectiveness of the professional activity of any specialist is the presence of a safe working environment. That is why the problem of creating safe conditions both for the patient and the medical staff is of great importance for modern medicine. Among the aggressive factors of the hospital environment, noted by the World Health Organization, is the psycho-emotional factor (Mears, 2020). Psychologically dangerous working conditions affect the health and mental well-being of the participants of the labor process. The article “A systematic review of factors that enable psychological safety in healthcare teams” provides a discussion of ensuring the emotional safety of medical personnel. This article is of interest because people today have begun to focus more and more on mental health and have identified many dangers to the human mental system. This paper will include a discussion of the ideas in the above article, as well as my personal opinion of the research problem.
To synthesize and then analyze the data, 36 research articles on the psychological safety of medical staff in the workplace were examined (O’donovan & Mcauliffe, 2020). The study resulted in identifying several key factors that contribute to safety. These factors were grouped into five themes: patient safety priority, focus on improvement or learning, support, familiarity with colleagues, inclusion, and individual differences. The first theme suggests that prioritizing patient safety can support psychological safety. This is because when hospitals have a culture of safety, staff can talk openly and discuss problems. This conclusion is supported by my experience in the hospital, which shows that the more developed the patient safety culture, the more secure the physicians feel. They do not fear for their safety because the hospital does everything to keep both sides of the medical process safe. The second key point is the focus on improvement. Care providers who work in an ever-improving environment talk about greater psychological safety.
As an example, hospital employees who receive continuing education and therefore feel more confident and safer. Another factor in influencing mental safety is support. With an open and respectful culture, workers feel much less stressed. For example, in a medical center with a democratic management style, where everyone’s voice is essential and not censured, employees will be more psychologically secure than in an authoritarian management style. The fourth and fifth vital points are familiarity with colleagues and inclusiveness (O’donovan & Mcauliffe, 2020). The article’s authors say that personal communication between team members and inclusive leadership behavior contributes to psychological safety. I believe that the factors described in the article are comprehensive. The most influential of these, in my opinion, is supportive and inclusive leadership. I believe that in a friendly atmosphere and a cohesive team, employees experience much less stress and therefore feel more psychologically secure. Also important is the improvement orientation factor because positive changes always provide more security for employees.
In conclusion, the article I reviewed provides an extensive analysis of the factors that affect the psychological safety of medical staff in the workplace. After analyzing 36 influential articles on the topic, the researchers identified five major factors. They include inclusiveness, support, familiarity with colleagues, focus on improvement, and prioritizing patient safety. I consider supportive and inclusive to be the most influential of these, as they create a healthy work environment and increase psychological safety. This topic is essential because workers in this field often face much stress. Consequently, there is a need for development and research in the direction of stress reduction. Health care workers are the people on whom the health of the country’s whole population is based. Hence, it is necessary to approach their protection with all scientific thoroughness.
References
Mears, P. (2020). Healthcare teams: Building continuous quality improvement. CRC Press. Web.
O’donovan, R., & Mcauliffe, E. (2020). A systematic review of factors that enable psychological safety in healthcare teams. International journal for quality in health care, 32(4), 240–250. Web.