Animation program used to encourage patients or family members to take an active role for eliminating wrong-site, wrong-person, wrong-procedure surgeries: Preliminary evaluation

• Published in: International journal of surgery (London, England) Vol. 9; no. 3; pp. 241 - 247
• Main Authors: See, Lai-Chu, Chang, Yi-Hua, Chuang, Kai-Lan, Lai, Hui-Ru, Peng, Pei-I, Jean, Wen-Chyi, Wang, Chao-Hui
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.01.2011
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Educational animation program; Family; Female; Humans; Male; Medical Errors - prevention & control; Middle Aged; Patient Education as Topic; Patient Participation; Patient safety; Patient Satisfaction; Patients and family members; Safety Management; Surgery; Wrong-site surgery; Young Adult; Patient safety; Wrong-site surgery; Patients and family members; Educational animation program
• ISSN: 1743-9191; 1743-9159
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijsu.2010.11.018

Abstract Background Wrong-site surgeries (including wrong-site, wrong-person and wrong-procedure errors) remain the number one problem among adverse events of health care delivery. Patients and/or family members should be involved when possible to help prevent such errors. Aims 1) Design an educational animation program about patient safety for patients and/or family members to help eliminate wrong-site surgery errors. 2) Evaluate its educational effect. Methods The animation developed for this study includes an introduction, hypothetical story, and guided information, and was presented at a tertiary medical center in northern Taiwan. A single-group pretest and posttest design was used. Results Forty-six patients and 48 family members participated in the study. The pre-training score was 3.6 (on a scale of 1–4). After watching the animation, there was no significant increase (0.08 ± 0.5) for the patient group, but the family member group showed significant improvement (0.21 ± 0.6, P  = .0309). Most participants (98.9%) were satisfied with the animation. Conclusion The majority of participants reported good practices for avoiding wrong-site surgery mistakes before an operation. A significant improvement of post-training scores in the family member group was seen. The high satisfaction rating given by the participants after seeing the animation indicates that it was generally acceptable.