Abstract
BackgroundThis study aims to increase understanding of how patient and family education affects the prevention of medical errors, thereby providing basic data for developing educational contents.MethodsThis descriptive study surveyed patients, families, and Patient Safety Officers to investigate the relationship between educational contents and medical error prevention. The Chi-square test and ANOVA were used to derive the results of this study. The educational contents used in this study consisted of health information (1. current medicines, 2. allergies, 3. health history, 4. previous treatments/tests and complications associated with them) and Speak Up (1. handwashing, 2. patient identification, 3. asking about medical conditions, 4. asking about test results, 5. asking about behaviour and changes in lifestyle, 6. asking about the care plan, 7. asking about medicines, and 8. asking about medicine interactions).ResultsIn this study, the first criterion for choosing a hospital for treatment in Korea was ‘Hospital with a famous doctor’ (58.6% patient; 57.7% families). Of the patients and their families surveyed, 82.2% responded that hospitals in Korea were safe. The most common education in hospitals is ‘Describe your medical condition’, given to 69.0% of patients, and ‘Hospitalisation orientation’, given to 63.4% of families. The most important factors in preventing patient safety events were statistically significant differences among patients, family members, and Patient Safety Officers (p = 0.001). Patients and families had the highest ‘Patient and family participation’ (31.0% of patients; 39.4% of families) and Patient Safety Officers had the highest ‘Patient safety culture’ (47.8%).ConclusionsParticipants thought that educational contents developed through this study could prevent medical errors. The results of this study are expected to provide basic data for national patient safety campaigns and standardised educational content development to prevent medical errors.
Highlights
This study aims to increase understanding of how patient and family education affects the prevention of medical errors, thereby providing basic data for developing educational contents
We want to provide Patient Safety Officers with basic data in developing educational contents to improve patient engagement. Research design This was a descriptive study examining the relationship between educational content and the degree to which medical errors can be prevented
Under Article 5 of Korea’s Patient Safety Act, ‘patients and their protectors shall participate in patient safety activities’
Summary
This study aims to increase understanding of how patient and family education affects the prevention of medical errors, thereby providing basic data for developing educational contents. Patient safety has become an important issue following the reporting of the status and improvement plan of patient safety in the ‘To err is human’ report published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 1999 [1]. Patient safety means preventing the harm that may occur through incidental or preventable injury from medical treatment, including overlooking appropriate treatment [3]. Medical errors can cause serious harm to patients and negatively impact medical institutions both qualitatively (e.g. patient safety and quality of care, hospital’s social image) and quantitatively (e.g. medical dispute costs, patient compensation costs, number of patients, and medical income) [4]. Many medical errors occur infrequently, but they can shorten life or accelerate impending death. Medical errors are a major concern of national and medical institutions because they are directly related to the patients’ life
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