Evaluation of the intern students' knowledge and attitudes about the patient safety culture and the determination of the factors affecting the development of the patient safety culture

Due to the increase in medical errors in recent years, patient safety studies have gained momentum. It is very important to provide patient safety training in medical schools in order to reduce and prevent medical errors. The aim of this study is to evaluate the knowledge and attitudes of intern students about patient safety culture, to determine the factors affecting the development of patient safety culture, and to examine the relationship between communication skills and patient safety. The study was carried out using the web-based questionnaire method created by scanning literature. The Questionnaire consists of 4 sections: the general information section with demographic data, the section with questions about patient safety and medical error, the Patient Safety Attitude Scale and the Communication Skills Assessment Scale (IASI) sections. The research was planned for interns who study at Bursa Uludağ University Faculty of Medicine and was conducted with 241 interns (73%) who agreed to participate in the study. In our study, 53.9% (n = 130) of the intern students were female and 46.1% (n = 111) were male. 97.1% of the study group (n = 234) stated that after graduation they plan to continue their post-graduation education in a specialty area. While 72.2% (n = 174) of the interns stated that they did not receive any patient safety training, 47.7% (n = 115) stated that they had insufficient knowledge about patient safety culture, 14.1% (n = 34) stated that they had made a medical mistake before. The mean total score for the Patient Safety Attitude Scale was 94.36 ± 9.41 and the total mean score of IASI was 95.81 ± 17.84. A significant positive correlation was found between the total scores of IASI and Patient Safety Attitude Scale. As a result, in our study, we found that internship students had relatively positive attitudes towards patient safety, but their knowledge on patient safety issues was insufficient. Including this subject in the curriculum in order to develop these attitudes will contribute to the reduction of medical errors and patient safety by creating a culture of patient safety.