Perception of patient safety among Final year MBBS students at King Edward Medical University Lahore

Abstract

Introduction: Patient safety is a vital part of healthcare. It is vital for the medical students that the concepts of the “Do no harm” theory must be understood. Those that do not understand this ultimately perform poorly in healthcare practice. Therefore, it is very important that medical students must be tutored for the concept of good medical practice.
Objective: To assess the patient safety perception among medical students in a public sector Medical College.
Methods: A sample size of 179 medical students (n=179) from the final year were selected. A questionnaire tool was used to calculate the understanding of medical students. Participants' responses were recorded and computed into SPSS 19 for descriptive analysis.
Results: About 55% of participants indicated a lack of knowledge regarding patient safety.25% of the medical students could not understand the type and nature of the iatrogenic error in providing good healthcare and exercising good medical practice. Also, 57% and 48 % of medical students were unable to understand that how to explain the iatrogenic error to patients, their attendants,s and their superiors respectively and 59% did not know that patient safety can be improved by targeted medical practice.
Conclusion: The majority of the medical students in final year MBBS were unaware of patient safety and how to improve it. However, they showed keen interest in understanding it and applying the concept of good medical practice to ensure patient safety.

KEYWORDS: Patient safety, undergraduates, knowledge, attitude