A Comparative Study on Patient Safety Awareness Between Medical School Freshmen and Age-Matched Individuals

Abstract

Background: To provide more effective pregraduate patient safety education, understanding medical students’ perceptions of patient safety before pregraduate patient safety education is necessary. Therefore, we conducted this study to examine patient safety awareness among medical students at the time of admission and compare it with that among controls. Methods: In the 2019 academic year, 132 medical school freshmen enrolled at Teikyo University and 166 age-matched, non-medical students enrolled at an affiliated institution within the Teikyo University organization were surveyed using an anonymous and self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire divided patient safety awareness into three categories: perception, knowledge, and attitude, which were evaluated on a 5-point Likert scale (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.77). To assess overall patient safety awareness, the total scores were calculated for the item groups on “perception”, “knowledge”, and “attitude” and compared these scores between the two groups. Results: The total scores (mean ± SD) were 104.2 ± 10.2 for medical students and 88.8 ± 9.6 for controls (p < 0.001). In the “perception” and “attitude” item groups, a higher proportion of medical students provided a positive response than controls. In particular, medical students were more motivated to learn about patient safety than the controls. In the “knowledge” item group, neither medical students nor controls provided a high proportion of positive responses. Conclusions: Medical students demonstrated a higher awareness of patient safety than controls and showed a strong sensitivity to patient safety from the time of enrollment.