Effect of Health Care Accreditation Council survey site visit on perceived stress level among Jordanian healthcare providers.

Aim: To assess perceived stress levels among healthcare providers in public and private hospitals before and after Health Care Accreditation Council (HCAC) survey site visits. Methods: A cross‐sectional, descriptive design was used in this study. A convenience sampling technique was used to recruit study participants. A self‐administered questionnaire (PSS‐10) was used to collect data. Descriptive statistics, dependent sample t test, independent sample t test, and multiple linear regression analysis were used to analyze data. Result: The results showed that stress levels were higher before a HCAC survey site visit (M = 18.39, SD = 4.3) than after (M = 14.09, SD = 6.1) (t(210) = 8.7, P ≤ 0.000) among healthcare providers. Between hospitals, the perceived stress level of healthcare providers was higher in the public hospital (M = 19.03, SD = 4.3) compared with the private hospital (M = 17.8, SD = 4.2) (t(209) = 2.16, P = 0.031) before the HCAC survey site visit. In contrast, there were no differences in perceived stress level for the public and private hospitals (t(209) = 0.001, P = 0.999) after the HCAC survey site visit. Finally, the type of hospital was the only sociodemographic characteristic that predicted the perceived stress level before the HCAC survey site visit (β = −0.157, P = 0.040). In contrast, there were no sociodemographic characteristics that predicted the perceived stress level after the HCAC survey site visit. Conclusions: The current study indicated that hospital accreditation is a process associated with significant stress (P = 0.000) among healthcare providers in both hospitals before and after an HCAC survey site visit. Moreover, there was a significant level of stress before an HCAC survey site visit in the public hospital (M = 19.03) compared with the private hospital (M = 17.8, P = 0.031). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]