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Bad things can happen: are medical students aware of patient centered care and safety?

  • Adrian Gillissen EMAIL logo , Tonja Kochanek , Michaela Zupanic and Jan Ehlers
Published/Copyright: November 9, 2022

Abstract

Objectives

Quality and safety in healthcare are of the utmost importance, but little is known about whether undergraduate students are aware of patient safety concepts. The objectives of our study were to assess the perception of medical students of challenges in patient safety, and collect their perceptions of error management and prevention.

Methods

This study used an exploratory mixed method strategy. The first study phase collected data from semi-structured interviews of 28 students. Based on this, an online survey was constructed and sent to about 80,000 medical students in Germany. 1053 replies were received and analyzed for responses based on gender, curriculum type (problem based [PBC] vs. science based curriculum [SBC]) and years of training.

Results

Most students understand the importance of patient safety, error avoidance, and the challenges of patient safety interventions. Four themes were identified: (a) the culture of patient safety (what is a good doctor? Doctors’ responsibility), (b) the working environment (the inevitability of mistakes, high work load, hierarchy, competition, teamwork), (c) the challenges of risk reduction (error avoidance, management, skills), and (d) materialistic issue (income vs. humanistic values). Female students were more risk aware than male students. Sixteen percent of students expect negative effects (e.g. punishment) when medical errors were disclosed in a team. Regardless, >70% regard teamwork as an effective error avoidance measure. Error disclosure willingness was high (89.7%).

Conclusions

Although not formally part of the curriculum, students had a positive perspective concerning patient safety. The opportunities and challenges for incorporating patient safety content into the training curriculum were identified and presented.


Corresponding author: Adrian Gillissen, MD, MSC, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Health, Institute for Didactics and Educational Research in Health Care, Witten/Herdecke University, Alfred-Herrhausen-Str. 50, 58455 Witten, Germany, Phone: +49-2302-926-78603, Fax: +49-2302-926-929, E-mail:

Funding source: Kreiskliniken Reutlingen GmbH

Award Identifier / Grant number: UW/H 11.540

  1. Research funding: Kreiskliniken Reutlingen GmbH, Reutlingen, Germany. Grant No.: UW/H 11.540.

  2. Author contributions: Adrian Gillissen (AG) and Jan Eherls analyzed and interpreted the qualitative data (student interviews). AG was the major contributor in writing the manuscript. Tonja Kochanek translated the German citations of the qualitative study part into English and was responsible for the organization of the quantitative study part. Michaela Zupanic did the statistics on the quantitative study part. All authors reviewed the analysis and the final text. All authors read and approved the final manuscript for submission.

  3. Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

  4. Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individuals included in this study. All participants of the qualitative study part agreed further to the audio recording either verbally or in written form. Confidentiality was warranted through an anonymization process.

  5. Ethics approval: Research involving human subjects complied with all relevant national regulations and institutional policies. The study was performed in accordance with the Declarations of Helsinki. Ethical approval of the study was obtained prior to the first interview from the University Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry Committee for Ethics at the University Witten-Herdecke (# 137/2919).

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Supplementary Material

The online version of this article offers supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/dx-2022-0072).


Received: 2022-06-27
Accepted: 2022-10-25
Published Online: 2022-11-09

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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