Safety Attitudes and Safety Climate Questionnaire

The Safety Attitudes Questionnaire was developed Bryan Sexton, Eric Thomas, and Bob Helmreich with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The standard citation for the survey is: Sexton JB, Helmreich RL, Neilands TB, Rowan K, Vella K, Boyden J, Roberts PR, Thomas EJ. The Safety Attitudes Questionnaire: Psychometric Properties, Benchmarking Data, and Emerging Research. BMC Health Services Research 2006;6:44.

Learn more about the questionnaire .
Read a selected bibliography of studies using the SAQ.
Visit a Google Scholar search of articles that cite the original questionnaire validation study.

Permissions

You have our permission to use the short form of the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire. Complete this form to request a permission letter.

Survey Version

We recommend using the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire – Short Form . We typically use the first thirteen items to measure teamwork and safety climate (see scoring key in the Supplemental Documents section that follows).

Other Versions

There is not a standard way of scoring the labor and delivery or operating room versions of the SAQ, so we do not provide guidance about using them. We believe the short form provided here can be adapted to any setting. If you’d like to use any other versions, they may be found in the literature but we do not provide additional guidance about their use. Please see the selected bibliography link above.

Supplemental Information

Safety Attitudes Questionnaire – Short Form Scoring Key
Safety Attitudes Questionnaire – Short Form Scale Items

Consulting Services

At this time, we do not offer consulting services related to the SAQ. If you would like more information about the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire, please contact us at utpatientsafety@gmail.com .