Patientsafety is an important element of health care and can be defined as freedom fora patient from unnecessary harm or potential harm related with health care. Everyyear, a number of patients suffer injuries or die because of unsafe and poorquality health care. Most of these injuries are avoidable. Thechallenges for patient safety in health care are lack of safety culture andattitudes that overlook basic safety rules for both the patient as well as thehealth-care professional.
Health-care professionals are reluctant to report ortalk about adverse events and medical errors for fear of blaming, embarrassment,punishment. Moreover, there is underreporting of adverse events and medicalerror. The WorldHealth Organization (WHO) has strategies for safer health care by placing thepatient at the centre through developing guidelines and tools, and buildingcapacity.
The patient safety educationprogram was established in 2009 to support the education and training ofmedical professionals and students in quality improvements and patient safety. Medicalstudents are the future medical care providers and they need to understand howsystems affect the quality and safety of healthcare and must prepare themselvesto practice care safely. The WorldHealth Organization (WHO) has developed a Patient Safety Curriculum Guide formedical students to help them meet this future challenge. The medical patientsafety curriculum guide builds patient safety knowledge and capacity topractice safely1 In Indonesia,curriculum on patient safety has implemented on 18 medical faculties since 2012according to the WHO Standard. Even tough, curriculum on patient safetyfor other healthcare professionals has not developed yet. There were also aguide how to integrate patient safety into medical school curriculum.
It willenable and encourage medical school to include patient safety in their course. However,very few studies has been investigated of undergraduate medical studentattitude to patient safety. The aim of this study was to assess undergraduatemedical students’ attitudes to patient safety issue and their interest ineducation related to patient safety.
