PERCEPTION OF UNDERGRADUATE MEDICAL STUDENTS REGARDING PATIENT SAFETY DURING CLINICAL ROTATIONS

ABSTRACT
Perception of Undergraduate Medical Students regarding Patient Safety during Clinical Rotations
Background: Patient safety is a crucial aspect of patient care in any health-care system. Patient safety refers to the prevention of errors and disadvantages to patients associated with healthcare delivery systems. The Institute of Medicine defined patient safety as, “prevention of harm to patients.”
Objective: To study the perception and professionalism of undergraduate medical students regarding patient safety during their clinical rotations.
Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on MBBS students at Northwest School of Medicine to study their perception regarding patient safety. A total of 200 students participated and completed the questionnaires using a convenient, non-probability sampling technique. Ethical approval was granted by the Institutional Review and Ethics Board of the school. The data was analyzed using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 24).
Results: The mean score of students was high (90.12 + 10.31), regarding their perception of patient safety. Comparison of knowledge scores between male and female students showed a slightly higher mean score [90.40(SD 9.996)] for females compared to male students mean [89.86.(10.629)] but not statistically significant. Moreover, there was no significant difference between year of study of students in their perception of patient safety. Mean score of safety culture was [31.01(SD4.138)] which was the highest followed by [19.98(SD5.345)] for professionalism, [18.89(SD2.996)] team culture and lowest for error disclosure that was [12.75(SD2.995)].
Conclusion: Our results show that the participants have a keen understanding of patient safety and also are practicing it to a certain extent. To still improve its role further, we emphasize on the point that patient safety should be made an integral part of the undergraduate medical curriculum, and job training as it will not only benefit future doctors but will be something that will prevent the patients from unnecessary harm through medical errors.
Keywords: Patient Safety, Undergraduate Medical Students, Professionalism, Safety Culture, Teamwork culture, Error Disclosure.