Nursing Students' Opinions on Patient Safety

Abstract

Improving nursing students’ knowledge and skills regarding patient safety is crucial to providing safe care. This descriptive research was conducted between October 2021 and March 2022 to determine nursing students’ opinions on patient safety and the factors influencing these opinions. The study population consisted of third- and fourth-year nursing students in Türkiye. Data were collected from 422 participants through an online questionnaire using convenience and snowball sampling methods. According to the findings, 23.5% of the students reported encountering medical errors/adverse events during clinical practice. While 89.8% of the students believed that medical errors/adverse events should be reported, only 12.1% reported that an incident report was filed in such cases. In addition, 40% of the students believed that healthcare professionals should be punished or warned for medical errors/adverse events. A statistically significant difference was found between gender and the view that healthcare professionals should be punished or warned (p = 0.036). This view also varied according to academic year (p = 0.011). The study findings emphasize the importance of fostering positive patient safety attitudes and creating a non- punitive culture in educational and clinical learning environments.