• Journal of patient safety · Sep 2011

    Physicians-in-training attitudes on patient safety: 2003 to 2008.

    • Rachel Sorokin, Jeffrey M Riggio, Stephanie Moleski, and Jacqueline Sullivan.
    • Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Divisions of Internal Medicine Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. rachel.sorokin@jefferson.edu
    • J Patient Saf. 2011 Sep 1;7(3):133-8.

    Objective: Physician trainees will embody medicine's future culture. We assess whether trainees' patient safety attitudes have evolved over time.Methods: We anonymously surveyed more than 800 house staff and fourth-year medical students (MS 4) in 2008, at 1 academic institution, with a 19-item questionnaire and compared their responses to the 2003 responses at the same institution on the same questionnaire.Results: A total of 463 trainees (53%) completed the 2008 survey, with a mean overall safety score of 3.54, which significantly improved from the 2003 overall score of 3.41 (P < 0.001). Compared with those from 2003, respondents in 2008 more strongly agree that physician-nurse teamwork (P = 0.001), attending supervision (P = 0.017), 80-hour workweek (P < 0.001), computer order entry (P < 0.001), and improved resident sign-out (P < 0.001) help reduce adverse events. The 2008 trainees feel more prepared to prevent adverse events (P = 0.030) and more acknowledge the ethical responsibility to disclose adverse events to patients (P = 0.002). However, compared with 2003, fewer 2008 respondents felt that reducing nurses' patient load would reduce adverse events (P = 0.015); on 8 questionnaire items, there were no significant attitudinal changes between 2003 and 2008.Conclusions: Physician trainee safety attitudes at 1 institution improved between 2003 and 2008, and these trainees support many system-based solutions to adverse events. The changes seem incremental and responses do not fully align with all aspects of a safety culture. Cultural change in health care must involve trainees and address their attitudes.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        

    hide…

Want more great medical articles?

Keep up to date with a free trial of metajournal, personalized for your practice.
1,694,794 articles already indexed!

We guarantee your privacy. Your email address will not be shared.