Students' Assessment on the Patient Safety Education: The Case of College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar

Abstract

Background: It is well-known that clinical practice could never be free from medical errors. Respectively, in the case of a large number of students with a huge diversity of disciplines, the breach of patients' safety is not uncommon. Thus, this study aimed to assess students' evaluation of patients' safety education in their curriculum.

Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 338 students at the University of Gondar. A descriptive analysis was done by using Stata version 13 software and data were presented in tables and text.

Results: As stated by 33.40% of medical interns and 51.10% of nursing students, patients' safety education was given as a chapter of a course. On the contrary, 48.20% of midwifery and 32.10% of health officer students stated that it was given as a small portion in a chapter in their curriculum. Almost 60% of students of all professional categories self-reported that their average level of knowledge on the patients' safety rested between "fair" and "poor." Likewise, more than half of students of all professional categories had a "neutral" to "disagree" level of attitude for attitude items. Concerning teaching methods, most students preferred real-life examples and problem-based learning approaches as helpful in patients' safety education.

Conclusions: Patients' safety education has been given less emphasis. Students also self-reported that their average level of knowledge was low. Real-life examples and problem-based learning approaches were preferred learning methods among most of the students.

Keywords: Education; medical errors; patients; safety.