Baccalaureate nursing students’ confidence on patient safety

Abstract

High rates of patient safety events led to media attention and litigation that sparked the patient safety movement. Gaining awareness of nursing students’ confidence levels on patient safety will reveal their perceptions of their competency. A quantitative descriptive cross-sectional method was employed. The Health Professional Education in Patient Safety Survey was used to determine how 458 baccalaureate nursing students from two nursing programs in Ontario, Canada rate their confidence levels on patient safety. Nursing students are the most confident on Clinical Safety topics and least confident on topics related to Human and Environmental Factors and Culture of Safety. Overall, they are more confident in the classroom than in the clinical settings with fourth year students expressing lower degrees of confidence on many of the areas. Education programs need to reinforce patient safety and educate students on their responsibilities to protect patients/clients. Programs need to target strategies to reduce student fears, promote error reporting, and system improvements.