ATTITUDE OF UNDERGRADUATE NURSING AND MIDWIFERY STUDENTS TOWARDS PATIENT SAFETY

Abstract

Background: Patient safety is an essential factor of healthcare quality. Enhancing students’ attitudes towards patient safety is a challenge that requires education, especially nursing and midwifery education, which has to be fulfilled to achieve. Therefore, it is important to assess the nursing and midwifery students' attitudes towards safety to improve education programs and promote students' engagement in patient safety practices. Objectives: To assess the attitude of nursing and midwifery students toward patient safety at Can Tho University of Medicine and Pharmacy and its related factors. Material and methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study design was used to involve 139 undergraduate nursing and midwifery students in the third and fourth years at Can Tho University of Medicine and Pharmacy. A 12-item questionnaire was used for collecting data. The attitude score ranged between 12 and 60 and was divided into negative and positive attitudes. SPSS version 26.0 was used for data analysis. Results: The mean score of nursing student participants’ attitudes towards patient safety was 39.1+6.6 score. 71.9% of students had positive attitudes. There was a statistically significant relationship between major and students’ attitudes of patient safety (p=0.04). Besides, students in their final academic year showed a statistically significantly higher level of attitude in relation to the third-year students (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Nursing students showed positive attitudes of safety. However, the incidence of negative attitudes was still quite high. Therefore, it is suggested that nursing educators should focus more on the improvement of patient safety education and the establishment of supportive study environments to enhance undergraduate students’ attitudes towards safety culture, especially midwifery students.