Examining patient safety education in pre-registration nursing curriculum: Qualitative study

Abstract

Background: Patient safety education has become an important tool to shape the future safety behaviour of health care professionals. The World Health Organisation has recently advocated eleven patient safety themes that need to be addressed in any health care educational curriculum. It is not known at this stage how far pre-registration adult nursing curriculum addresses these patient safety themes.

Aims: To examine the views of nursing students and faculty members on patient safety education in a pre-registration adult nursing curriculum in relation to the WHO’ patient safety themes.

Method: Qualitative method, utilising 20 semi-structured interviews with pre-registration adult nursing students and faculty members (10 students and 10 faculty members). The data were analysed thematically.

Findings: Three main themes emerged from the participants’ views: ‘Not explicitly linked to patient safety’, ‘Mismatch between theory and practice’ and ‘The role of the mentor in practice’. The power imbalance between the students and staff in clinical placement appeared to have rendered many students reluctant to challenge unsafe practice.

Conclusion: Patient safety education needs to be more visibly taught in nursing education. The nursing curriculum’ content, teaching and delivery methods may need to be reconsidered to better address the relevant WHO’ patient safety themes, but also to accommodate the unique context of each nursing educational system.