BACKGROUND: There is a growing recognition of the need to establish a culture that focuses on patient safety in order to reduce the number of adverse events associated with care and improve health-care quality in Morocco. The aim of this research is to analyze results of the perception of health professionals working in two university hospitals concerning the concept of patient safety culture in Morocco.

METHODS: This study evaluated the healthcare professional’s perceptions of patient safety culture in two selected university hospitals centers in Morocco by using the validated French version of the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture questionnaire (HSOPSC). A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in 2021. We randomly selected 10 health units of each hospital, to include up to 10 health professionals from each unit, regardless of length of experience. This self-administered questionnaire was distributed to a population of 204 Moroccan healthcare professionals who consisted predominately of available physicians and nurses across ten different health units.

RESULT: The overall grade of patient safety was deemed "good" for 52 % of the staff, "very good" for 17%, against "failing" for 2%.  Out of the 10 dimensions explored. The “Teamwork within units’’ dimension had the highest score with 80%. The dimensions with the lowest positive response rates were “Staffing (23%)”, “non-punitive response to error” (31%) and “Teamwork across units’ (47%). Seven dimensions were considered underdeveloped and three were undeveloped.

Conclusion: This work provides a better understanding of healthcare professional perception towards patient safety.

KEYWORDS:  Patient safety; Perception; Patient safety culture