Critically ill patient safety in nursing education: Students’ practices and perception

Background: Patient safety is the cornerstone for better quality health care and nursing education. There is limited evidence about how patient safety is addressed in healthcare professional curricula and how organizations develop safe practitioners.Aim: To assess the practices and perception of nursing students regarding the safety of critically ill patients.Materials and methods: Participants of this descriptive correlation exploratory study were 100 nursing students conveniently from the students enrolled in Critical Care Nursing course during academic year 2013-2014 in faculty of nursing, Alexandria University. The study was conducted in the critical care units affiliated to Alexandria Main University Hospital namely (Unit I, Unit III, and Triage). The first tool was Critical Care Practices of Safety Measures Observational Checklist and the second tool was Students’ Unsafe Clinical Practices Perception questionnaire.Results: It was found that 49% of the nursing students had poor perception regarding their unsatisfactory clinical performance. In addition, 55% of the nursing students have poor perception regarding their poor documentation. Furthermore, 44% of them have poor perception regarding lack of clinical educators’ role competency.Conclusions: Nursing students’ perception was poor regarding their clinical performance, cognitive performance and critical thinking skills and documentation. In addition, nursing students reported that they have poor perception regarding nurse educators’ role competency. Therefore, nursing curriculum should incorporate concepts and principles that guide nursing students in developing caring, safe, competent and professional behavior and should be developed for the nursing students based on the WHO patient safety topics which will focus on patient safety.