Effects of a case-based interactive e-learning course on knowledge and attitudes about patient safety: a quasi-experimental study with third-year medical students

• Published in: BMC medical education Vol. 16; no. 1; p. 172
• Main Authors: Gaupp, Rainer, Körner, Mirjam, Fabry, Götz
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London BioMed Central 11.07.2016; BioMed Central Ltd
• Subjects: Adult; Affective Objectives; Approaches to teaching and learning; Behavioral Objectives; Case method; Case Studies; Clinical Competence - standards; Computer-Assisted Instruction; Curricula; Education; Education, Medical, Undergraduate - methods; Education, Medical, Undergraduate - standards; Educational Measurement; Educational Technology; Evaluation; Female; Health education; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Humans; Instructional Materials; Learning Processes; Male; Medical Education; Medical errors; Medical Errors - prevention & control; Methods; Online education; Patient Safety; Prevention; Problem-Based Learning; Research Article; Safety education; Simulation Training; Students, Medical; Study and teaching; Systems theory; Teaching; Teaching Methods; Theory of Medicine/Bioethics; User-Computer Interface; Germany; Patient safety; Medical education; Attitudes; Safety culture
• ISSN: 1472-6920; 1472-6920
• DOI: 10.1186/s12909-016-0691-4

Background Patient safety (PS) is influenced by a set of factors on various levels of the healthcare system. Therefore, a systems-level approach and systems thinking is required to understand and improve PS. The use of e-learning may help to develop a systems thinking approach in medical students, as case studies featuring audiovisual media can be used to visualize systemic relationships in organizations. The goal of this quasi-experimental study was to determine if an e-learning can be utilized to improve systems thinking, knowledge, and attitudes towards PS. Methods A quasi-experimental, longitudinal within- subjects design was employed. Participants were 321 third-year medical students who received online surveys before and after they participated in an e-learning course on PS. Primary outcome measures where levels of systems thinking and attitudes towards PS. Secondary outcome measures were the improvement of PS specific knowledge through the e-learning course. Results Levels of systems thinking showed significant improvement (58.72 vs. 61.27; p  < .001) after the e-learning. Student’s attitudes towards patient safety improved in several dimensions: After the course, students rated the influence of fatigue on safety higher (6.23 vs. 6.42, p  < .01), considered patient empowerment more important (5.16 vs. 5.93, p  < .001) and realized more often that human error is inevitable (5.75 vs. 5.97, p  < .05). Knowledge on PS improved from 36.27 % correct answers before to 76.45 % after the e-learning ( p  < .001). Conclusions Our results suggest that e-learning can be used to teach PS. Attitudes towards PS improved on several dimensions. Furthermore, we were able to demonstrate that a specifically designed e-learning program can foster the development of conceptual frameworks such as systems thinking, which facilitates the understanding of complex socio-technical systems within healthcare organisations.