Patient Safety in the Eyes of Aspiring Healthcare Professionals: A Systematic Review of Their Attitudes.

Ilaria Tocco Tussardi,Roberto Benoni,Stefano Tardivo,Albert W Wu,Isolde Martina Busch,Francesca Moretti,Albino Poli,Michela Rimondini

doi:10.3390/ijerph18147524

Abstract

A culture of safety is important for the delivery of safe, high-quality care, as well as for healthcare providers’ wellbeing. This systematic review aimed to describe and synthesize the literature on patient safety attitudes of the next generation of healthcare workers (health professional students, new graduates, newly registered health professionals, resident trainees) and assess potential differences in this population related to years of study, specialties, and gender. We screened four electronic databases up to 20 February 2020 and additional sources, including weekly e-mailed search alerts up to 18 October 2020. Two independent reviewers conducted the search, study selection, quality rating, data extraction, and formal narrative synthesis, involving a third reviewer in case of dissent. We retrieved 6606 records, assessed 188 full-texts, and included 31 studies. Across articles, healthcare students and young professionals showed overwhelmingly positive patient safety attitudes in some areas (e.g., teamwork climate, error inevitability) but more negative perceptions in other domains (e.g., safety climate, disclosure responsibility). Women tend to report more positive attitudes. To improve safety culture in medical settings, health professions educators and institutions should ensure education and training on patient safety.

Highlights

Published: 15 July 2021Studies from the past two decades indicate that medical error is a leading cause of death in both the United States and the European Union [1,2]
We conducted a systematic search of four electronic databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, PsycInfo) up to 20 February 2020 without restriction to language and publication date, applying the following search strategy:
Other comparisons of interest, such as differences in attitudes between students with low and high workload, were not conducted often enough to make subgroup analyses possible. Some biases, such as social desirability bias, recall bias, and non-response bias may have influenced the results of the included studies and been reflected in turn in our findings. Another limitation is that we only focused on patient safety attitudes and did not take into account other aspects of patient safety culture, such as knowledge, skills, and behaviors

Summary

Introduction

Published: 15 July 2021Studies from the past two decades indicate that medical error is a leading cause of death in both the United States and the European Union [1,2]. Medical error, defined by the US National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) as “the failure of a planned action to be completed as intended or the use of a wrong plan to achieve an aim”, is widely understood to be caused by system rather than individual factors [3]. Given the broad adverse impact of medical errors on patients, their caregivers, and healthcare workers [5,6], their prevention must be a top priority for national and local health systems. Creating a safety culture in healthcare organizations has been recognized as a key strategy for ensuring patient safety, reducing medical errors, and improving the quality of care [7]. Safety climate is a measurable component of safety culture, derived from the attitudes and perceptions

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion