Patient safety education: a cross-sectional survey of knowledge, skill and attitude of medical students on patient safety in China

Tags: Poster
Jia P1, Zhao P1, Zhang L1, Zhang M1
1Chinese Cochrane Center, China

Background: Reducing medical errors and improving patient safety have become the priority of health care around the world. China has been carrying out patient safety education in medical students for the past 10 years. Medical students should be able to recognize unsafe conditions, and systematically report errors and near misses.

Objectives: To assess the knowledge, skill and attitude of medical students on patient safety.

Methods: This is a descriptive and cross-section study. A questionnaire of 31 items was developed based on the World Health Organization (WHO) study for patient safety curriculum guide. The survey was conducted in three medical universities of China in 2014. A total of 183 third- and 221 fourth-year medical students were included. Microsoft Excel 2007 and SPSS 17.0 were used to perform data extraction and analysis.

Results: The survey yielded 500 questionnaires with an 81% response rate. The average blank item in a total of 31 items was 0.96% of which the item that was most often blank was 'What will happen when a medical error occurs?'. The study population consisted of 143 male and 262 female students. Their attitude to good patient safety was positive, but the students had little knowledge of patient safety especially regarding medical errors and how to report them,. There were no statistical differences across the three universities or grades. The only statistical difference was for the item 'I would like to discuss with others when I made medical error' between genders.

Conclusions: The results suggest that the knowledge and skill of patient safety from medical students is very poor in China. The patient safety culture should be established properly.