Exploring medical and nursing students' perceptions about a patient safety course: a qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Educating health professionals on patient safety can potentially reduce healthcare-associated harm. Patient safety courses have been incorporated into medical and nursing curricula in many high-income countries and their impact has been demonstrated in the literature through objective assessments. This study aimed to explore student perceptions about a patient safety course to assess its influence on aspiring health professionals at a personal level as well as to explore differences in areas of focus between medical and nursing students. METHODS: A dedicated patient safety course was introduced for year III medical and year II and IV nursing students at the Aga Khan University (2021-2022). As part of a post-course assessment, 577 participating students (184 medical and 393 nursing) wrote reflections on the course, detailing its influence on them. These free-text responses were thematically analyzed using NVivo. RESULTS: The findings revealed five major themes: acquired skills (clinical, interpersonal), understanding of medical errors (increased awareness, prevention and reduction, responding to errors), personal experiences with patient safety issues, impact of course (changed perceptions, professional integrity, need for similar sessions, importance of the topic) and course feedback (format, preparation for clinical years, suggestions). Students reported a lack of baseline awareness regarding the frequency and consequences of medical errors. After the course, medical students reported a perceptional shift in favor of systems thinking regarding error causality, and nursing students focused on human factors and error prevention. The interactive course format involving scenario-based learning was deemed beneficial in terms of increasing awareness, imparting relevant clinical and interpersonal skills, and changing perspectives on patient safety. CONCLUSIONS: Student perspectives illustrate the benefits of an early introduction of dedicated courses in imparting patient safety education to aspiring health professionals. Students reported a lack of baseline awareness of essential patient safety concepts, highlighting gaps in the existing curricula. This study can help provide an impetus for incorporating patient safety as a core component in medical and nursing curricula nationally and across the region. Additionally, patient safety courses can be tailored to emphasize areas identified as gaps among each professional group, and interprofessional education can be employed for shared learning. The authors further recommend conducting longitudinal studies to assess the long-term impact of such courses.

Integrated course assessments in an undergraduate nursing program.

Curriculum integration is a partnership amongst multidisciplinary members to create a cohesive curriculum and improve education. Basic and clinical science integration helps students learn deeply. Integrated curricula facilitate students to become lifelong learners. It encourages critical thinking and clinical reflection and helps students become active, self-directed learners. A comprehensive integrated exam was conducted at Aga Khan University, School of Nursing and midwifery to establish meaningful learning and enhance theoretical knowledge application in clinical practice, using competencies from four different courses in second year of study. Comprehensive Integrated Exam prepared students to assess a client and design complete nursing care based on health assessment, adult health nursing, pharmacology, and pathophysiology course concepts. This integrated exam was very effective as 97 % of students who took the exam passed on their first attempt. Faculty members involved found the comprehensive integrated exam a successful strategy to evaluate students learning, whereas the students related that this exam helped them to bridge the gap between applying theoretical concepts from different courses to clinical practice.

Incorporating Patient Safety and Quality Course Into the Nursing Curriculum: An Assessment of Student Gains.

BACKGROUND: Training nursing students on quality and patient safety (PS) is crucial to ensuring safe healthcare practices given the key role nurses play on the healthcare team. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of quality and PS course on the knowledge, and system thinking of students at different stages of the undergraduate nursing course. METHODS: A 4.5-day quality improvement and PS course was conducted at the Aga Khan University School of Nursing and Midwifery for 146 second- and 139 fourth-year students. Students' knowledge, self-assessment of knowledge and skills, and system thinking were assessed using pretest and posttest. RESULTS: Of the total of 20 points, the course significantly improved students' knowledge by a mean of 4.91 points for second-year students (95% confidence interval [CI], 4.32-5.51) and 3.46 points for fourth-year students (95% CI, 2.90-4.02) between pretest and posttest. For systems thinking, the Systems Thinking Scale scores increased by 0.41 points (95% CI, 0.29-0.52) for second-year students and 0.33 points (95% CI, 0.22-0.44) for fourth-year students out of the total of 5 points. The self-assessment scores significantly increased on postcourse assessment for second (P < 0.05) and fourth-year students (P < 0.001). Positive experience reported by students in the narrative reflections complemented these results. CONCLUSIONS: There was a significant increase in nursing students' knowledge, self-efficacy, and system thinking after participating in this short PS course. Replication at a national level may improve safety knowledge and skills among nursing students with subsequent gains in the safety of healthcare delivery in Pakistan.