Patient safety culture amongst dental students and interns in Dammam, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate awareness and attitudes of dental students and interns about patient safety culture in Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

Materials and methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 272 undergraduate dental students and interns using the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ) from November 2019 to January 2020. The SAQ consists of six domains: teamwork climate, safety climate, job satisfaction, stress recognition, perception of management and work conditions. The score of SAQ ranges from 0 to 100, and a cut-off ≥75 is considered a positive attitude of patient safety.

Results: The study included 47.1% of males and 52.9% of females with a mean age of 22.58 ± 1.3 years. Few participants (9.9%) showed a positive attitude of patient safety culture. Nearly one-third of participants (35.7%) attended a course on patient safety and 31.6% reported experiencing adverse events by them or their families. Out of six domains, job satisfaction showed the highest mean score (70.25) and 75.4% of participants felt proud to practise in the dental clinic. Female students demonstrated a significantly higher mean score of stress recognition (64.28 ± 18.98) than male students (56.98 ± 22.53) (P 0.004). The mean SAQ score increased significantly from fourth year students to interns (P < .001).

Conclusions: A small percentage of students demonstrated a positive attitude of patient safety and only one-third attended a patient safety course. The job satisfaction domain was highly rated and patient safety culture significantly improved from junior to senior students. Dental curricula should include patient safety courses to improve the quality and safety of patient care.

Keywords: dental students; dentistry; medical errors; patient safety.