Patient Safety in Family Medicine through the Eyes of People with Chronic Conditions in Slovenia

Variables	Description	N (number of practices)	%
Practice location	Urban	49	70.0
Practice location	Rural	21	30.0
Type of practice	Public	60	85.7
Type of practice	Private	10	14.3
Electronic exchange of patient information	Yes	38	54.3
Electronic exchange of patient information	No	32	45.7
Review of indicators of patient care	Yes	44	62.9
Review of indicators of patient care	No	26	37.1
Routine development of patient care plans for groups of patients	Yes	37	53.6
	No	33	46.4

Logistic regression analysis of predictors of adverse events_

Predictor	B (SE)	Wald χ²	p-value	OR	95% CI
Number of medications / Polypharmacy	-0.28 (0.34)	0.69	0.492	0.75	0.34-1.62
Medication review	-0.27 (0.30)	0.83	0.406	0.76	0.42-1.36
Repetition of information	0.42 (0.17)	6.13	< 0.001	1.53	1.20-1.95
Encouragement to express concerns	0.76 (0.47)	2.65	0.008	2.14	1.14-4.03
Transport barriers	0.32 (0.21)	2.26	0.024	1.1	1.02-1.95
Cost barriers	-0.07 (0.05)	1.66	0.097	0.93	0.86-1.99

Spearman’s rank correlations between patient safety indicators_

Variable	Repetition	Adverse events	Encouragement	Transport barriers	Cost barriers
Repetition	1.00	0.16	-0.05	0.09	0.11
Adverse events	0.16	1.00	-0.08	0.12	0.15
Encouragement	-0.05	-0.08	1.0	-0.04	-0.03
Transport barriers	0.09	0.12	-0.04	1.00	0.22
Cost barriers	0.11	0.15	-0.03	0.22	1.00

Characteristics of patients_

Variables	N (number of practices)	%
Sex
Female	1268	62.7
Male	754	37.3
Age (years) categories
45–54	505	23.7
55–74	1355	63.6
75 +	271	12.7
Higher education
Yes	1247	61.7
No	774	38.3
Employment
Yes	886	43.9
No	1133	56.1
Income
Low	758	43.1
Medium	597	34.0
High	403	22.9
Living place
Urban	1094	54.2
Rural	923	45.8
Living with other people
Yes	1402	73.1
No	515	26.9

Cross-tabulation of polypharmacy and medication review, NA – not applicable_

Number of medications	Medication review: Yes (N, %)	Medication review: No (N, %)	Not sure (N, %)	Total (N)
No medication	NA	NA	NA	282
1-2	277 (31.2%)	554 (62.2%)	56 (6.6%)	890
3-4	240 (39.9%)	306 (50.8%)	54 (9.0%)	602
5-9	119 (46.3%)	120 (46.7%)	18 (7.0%)	257
≥ 10	14 (43.8%)	11 (34.4%)	7 (21.9%)	33
Total	650 (36.6%)	991 (55.8%)	135 (7.6%)	1776

Distribution of responses to patient safety indicators_

Indicator	Category	N (number of practices)	%
Number of medications regularly taken	Does not take any medicine	282	8.5
	1-2	890	27.0
	3-4	602	18.2
	5-9	257	7.8
	10 or more	33	1.0
Medication review in the last 12 months	Yes	650	19.7
	No	991	30.0
	I’m not sure	135	4.1
Repetition of medical information	Yes, definitely	155	4.7
	Yes, to some extent	246	7.4
	Neither	849	25.7
	Not at all	1439	43.6
	I’m not sure	295	8.9
Frequency of adverse events	Always	22	0.7
	Often	157	4.8
	Sometimes	380	11.5
	Rarely	721	21.8
	Never	1596	48.3
	Not applicable	101	3.1
Encouragement to express concerns	Always	7	0.2
	Often	95	2.9
	Sometimes	299	9.1
	Rarely	457	13.8
	Never	1967	59.6
	Not applicable	147	4.5
Foregoing care due to transport difficulties	Always	3	0.1
	Often	33	1.0
	Sometimes	103	3.1
	Rarely	230	7.0
	Never	1695	75.9
	Not applicable	96	2.9
Foregoing care due to medical costs	Always	91	2.8
	Often	123	3.7
	Sometimes	313	9.5
	Rarely	400	12.1
	Never	1700	51.5
	Not applicable	337	10.1

References

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Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/sjph-2026-0012 | Journal eISSN: 1854-2476 | Journal ISSN: 0351-0026

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Language: English

Page range: 94 - 103

Submitted on: Oct 17, 2025

Accepted on: Apr 14, 2026

Published on: Jun 1, 2026

Published by: National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Publication frequency: 4 issues per year

Keywords:

PaRIS,

Related subjects:

Hygiene and environmental medicine

© 2026 Staša Grabar, Zalika Klemenc-Ketiš, published by National Institute of Public Health, Slovenia
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 65 (2026): Issue 2 (June 2026)