patient safety behavior in physicians: how is it predicted?

background: patient safety is a serious global public health issue. estimates show that every day many patients are harmed while receiving hospital care. health care staff plays a key role in providing quality and safe patient care, especially physicians who are main members of the medical team and a critical element in patient safety efforts. objective: the current study used a theory of planned behavior (tpb) framework to investigate predictors of patient safety intentions and behavior of physicians. methods: this descriptive analytical study was conducted in 8 hospitals with 52 physicians participating. a researcher-designed questionnaire was prepared to investigate patient safety behaviors and behavior constructs of physicians based on the guidelines of constructing a tpb questionnaire: conceptual and methodological considerations. the content validity and reliability of the questionnaire were confirmed. binary logistic regression analysis was performed using spss18. results: the total mean score of physician safety behavior indicated that 3.8±0.92. 42% of physicians reported their safety behavior at a good level. there was no significant difference between the patient safety function of physicians in public and private hospitals (p=0.8) and working in medical or surgical wards (p=0.4). among tpb constructs, “normative beliefs” had the greatest influence on physician intention for safety behaviors (wald=3.828, p=0.05). conclusion: the results showed that “normative beliefs” had the greatest influence on physician intention for safety behaviors; therefore, it seems that patient safety must be the most important concern of all health care staff, specifically managers and executives throughout health care centers.