A survey of attitude of frontline clinicians and nurses towards adverse events

Abstract

Background: It is often said that doctors are only human. However, technological wonders, apparent precision of diagnostic tests and scientific innovation have created an expectation of perfection from medical science. Patient safety and prevalence of adverse events on the hospital floor have become issues of serious concern for the healthcare environment.

Method: The study had cross-sectional design, done over a period of one year at a teaching medical college and its affiliated hospitals. The study instrument was an anonymous, voluntary 5-point Likert scaled questionnaire and study sample was selected by simple random sampling into two groups of front-line clinicians (n = 175) and nurses (n = 60). The questionnaire was analysed for its reliability, construct and content validity. Subsequently, the data was entered into an Excel Spreadsheet and further analysed by statistical software SPSS version 16.

Results: Total of 175 front-line clinicians and 60 nurses completed the survey for response rate of 96%. The study instrument was suitably validated for its psychometric properties. Statistically significant differences were observed between the two study samples across certain attitudinal statements, the important ones being responsibility for reporting and comfort level towards disclosing adverse events. Surgical site infections, Medication errors and Patient Falls were the commonly observed adverse events and lack of communication among team members was identified as a major factor leading to adverse events.

Conclusion: Effective attitude-based interventions need to be developed, where the attitude and culture of front-line healthcare workers can be explicitly targeted for inducing desirable behavioural changes towards improved patient safety.

Keywords: Adverse events; Medical error; Patient safety.

Fig. 1

Numbers of adverse events witnessed.

Fig. 2

Factors for not reporting adverse events.