Medical Students’ Attitude in Patient Safety: A Survey From a Tertiary Hospital in Thailand

Abstract

Background: Understand patient safety attitude in medical students is important and useful to improve teaching on patient safety at undergraduate level.
 Objective: To assess the attitude on patient safety in clinical year medical students.
 Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 4th to 6th year medical students in Maharat Nakhon Ratchasima Hospital from August to September 2018. The 26-item Attitudes toward Patient Safety Questionnaire (APSQ) was sent via Google Forms to medical students for voluntary, anonymous answer. The 9 topics of patient safety culture were collected and analyzed.
 Results: There were 106 of 128 medical students responded to the questionnaire. In 9 topics of safety culture, the highest positive attitude in medical students was working hours as an error cause (76.1%). Meanwhile, the lowest positive attitude was professional incompetence as an error cause (26.9%). Neither academic year nor grade point average (GPA) of medical students was associated with positive attitude score. Half of medical students reported a positive attitude of the importance of patient safety in the curriculum.
 Conclusions: Medical students had positive attitude of patient safety. Perspective in systems thinking of patient safety should be emphasized in patient safety education of medical students.