Perception of Patient Safety Culture in the Students at Medical Faculties

The quest to improve patient safety has become a global movement. In order to improve a culture of patient safety, it is important for medical students who will start the profession, as well as health professionals, to know patient safety before graduation. The study aims to assess the attitudes of medical students to patient safety culture and the notification of medical error. The study has been conducted with a total of 1,278 volunteer students from the Faculties of Medicine in Turkey. A web-based survey was administered to medical students. It was found that the attitudes of medical students to the culture of patient safety are generally moderate (64.06 ± 18.55 and 69.0 [IQR: 59.8–75.9]), and few of the students (32.3%) who witnessed a medical error shared the malpractice with someone. There was almost no education on patient safety during medical school. The students in the fourth grade got higher scores in disclosure responsibility compared to those in the other grades. In the study, age was significantly linearly and negatively correlated with the scores of error reporting confidence, team functioning, patient’s role in error subscales and total score. We concluded that the attitudes of medical students to patient safety culture and the notification of medical errors should be developed and supported by the faculty management. Furthermore, this study creates an awareness in terms of the application of about patient safety at training programme in medicine faculties in Turkey.