Implementing and evaluating a patient safety curriculum for undergraduate medical students using blackboard

Abstract EN

Background: One of the important components of the medical school curricula is patient safety education.

Aim: To introduce a WHO patient safety course in medical undergraduate curriculum College of Medicine Jouf University (COM JU) using blackboard, measuring students’ attitudes and knowledge to patient safety course pre-post intervention.

Methods: A quasi-experimental Pre-program/Post-program single group design was applied in this study.

A comprehensive sample of 5 th -year undergraduate medical students (COM JU) (n=56) participated in the study.

The first two levels of Kirkpatrick’s evaluation of educational intervention were measured; the first level (learner satisfaction) measured using The Attitudes to Patient Safety Questionnaire (APSQ) and the second level (knowledge) where students completed locally designed multiple-choice items targeting patient safety basic information.

To increase student's awareness of the course author conducted a World Health Organization (WHO) learning from errors workshop before the implementation of the course.

The course was uploaded on the college's learning management system (Blackboard).

Students' satisfaction with blackboard as a learning tool for patient safety course was measured.

Results: We matched student pretest with posttest and used paired t-tests to identify mean differences.

Response rate was 86.15% (n=56) of students.

There was a statistically significant difference between genders regarding the importance of patient safety (p =0.004).

Results of (APSQ) showed that there was a minor improvement of attitude towards patient safety after the intervention.

There was a statistically significant difference between students' knowledge test pre-post intervention (pre_42.86±12.17-post_54.83 ±14.9) p 0.000.

Seventythree percent 73% (n=41) of students agreed that Blackboard provided them with a positive learning experience.

Conclusion: implementing a patient safety course into undergraduate medical education improved students’ knowledge of patient safety, blackboard is an effective learning management system to teach a course online from a students' perspective.