Pre-Clinical Medical Students’ Perception regarding Patient Safety in Primary Care

Abstract

Patient safety is a new and challenging discipline in primary care. Medical students need to understand and demonstrate appropriate patient safety skills in professional education. Preclinical students at Oman Medical College (OMC) have clinical skills training in primary care as well as in the hospital. The present study aimed to seek pre-clinical medical students' perceptions of their individual performance at a range of safety skills. A cross sectional study conducted at OMC. Data was collected by self-administrated questionnaire to a simple random sample of 50 medical students in pre-clinical years after finishing Family Medicine rotation. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0. Most participants (88%) agreed the importance of patient safety. Self-rated general knowledge on patient safety on good level (72%) compared to (27%) for the specific knowledge issues score. In medical error management 75% willing to report medical errors, more than half willing to disclose error to patient and faculty and 89% agreed introducing patient safety topic in undergraduate medical schools curricula. Students had a favorable opinion of their own safety skills. However, specific knowledge question revealed some misconceptions. Most participants recognized the importance of patient safety topic in curriculum. Students are fair and honest to report medical errors. They considered competent physician don't make errors.

Undergraduate medical students’ attitudes towards medical errors and patient safety: a multi-center cross-sectional study in the Gaza Strip, Palestine

“…Hence, 'theoretical learning' of error causation could contribute to counteract the impact of the 'hidden curriculum'. These findings, underline the need for formal delivery of patient safety contents within the undergraduate curriculum in conjunction with organisational change towards a non-punitive approach to enable medical students and healthcare professionals to learn from medical error [14,55,60,61].…”

“…They also demonstrated significantly more positive views on error reporting, despite the fact that their clinical training had been very similar and delivered by the same teachers in the same facilities. This difference between students from the two universities could be due to the curriculum contents on medical errors at University 2, which included a module on the opportunity errors pose for learning in individuals and organisations [14,17,55,60,61]. Hence, 'theoretical learning' of error causation could contribute to counteract the impact of the 'hidden curriculum'.…”

“…Patient safety contents have been included in postgraduate and undergraduate education of health-related professions worldwide [10][11][12]. Furthermore, it was shown that learning about patient safety early in the career and at the undergraduate level is more effective than later on at the postgraduate level [13,14]. One reason could be the 'hidden curriculum', where medical students and young doctors learn from role models or more senior doctors who might demonstrate clinical practice that does not always adhere to patient safety standards [15,16].…”

“…So far, patient safety content has not been represented well in post-and undergraduate training of healthcare professionals in low-and middle-income countries [21], and Palestine is no different. Similarly, only one local university introduced limited patient safety contents into its curriculum, although patient safety education might have greater impact in undergraduate education than in postgraduate education [13,14].…”

Treating patients in a safe environment: a cross-sectional study of patient safety attitudes among doctors in the Gaza Strip, Palestine

“…In order to produce such a work environment for healthcare staff, commitment for patient safety practices and understanding of patient safety concepts must be nurtured on multiple levels, including the organization, the leadership and the workforce. A combination of establishing systems to enhance patient safety practices, learn from errors, improve team functioning combined with patient safety training of leadership and workforce is needed to reach the common goal of safe patient care in complex health systems [2,4,5,7,[9][10][11]. Therefore, patient safety education has been integrated in postgraduate curricula across the world.…”