Knowledge and Attitude toward Patients’ Safety among Clinical Students in a South Western University, Nigeria

Abstract

Introduction: The study investigated the knowledge, attitude, sources of knowledge, as well as the relationship between knowledge and attitude towards patients' safety among clinical students in Obafemi Awolowo University. Materials and Methods: The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional design and 281 students were selected from the Department of Nursing Science, Medicine, Dentistry, Medical Rehabilitation and Pharmacy using a convenient sampling technique. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data and the data were analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (version 25). Data were presented with descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: Findings from this study revealed that respondents' mean age was 21.56±3.20 with the majority of the respondents (65.5%) being within 20-24 years old. 68.7% of the respondents had good knowledge, 19.6% had fair knowledge and 11.7% had poor knowledge. The result also showed that more than half of the respondents ((69.4%) were taught about patient safety as part of my course of study in my department while less than half (46.3%) learnt about patient safety on their own. The result further showed that 64.1% had a negative attitude while 35.9% had a positive attitude towards patient safety. There was a significant relationship between clinical students’ knowledge and their course of study (Chi-square value =26.90, P-value >0.01). Conclusion: This study established that clinical students have a good knowledge of patient safety but with negative attitude towards patient safety. Hence, the health professionals’ educators need to integrate patient safety curriculum into the education of young health professionals.

Keywords

• attitude
• clinical students
• knowledge
• patient safety