A case-based approach for teaching medication safety to pharmacy students

ObjectiveTo determine if a three-hour interactive case-based laboratory experience improves attitudes about medication errors and systematic approaches to improve medication safety among pharmacy students in their third professional year.DesignA modified version of the Attitudes to Patient Safety Questionnaire was used to assess the attitudes of pharmacy students toward medication errors before and after the lab.AssessmentThe results of 49 matched surveys indicate that students’ attitudes significantly improved in response to 15 out of 20 questions. These questions assessed students’ attitudes of medication safety as related to the students’ confidence in understanding and preventing medication errors, the effectiveness of pharmacy school training, the human nature of errors, the role of inter-professional teamwork and patient involvement, and inclusion of patient safety issues in the pharmacy curriculum. Students’ attitudes did not change significantly for five questions that assessed student willingness to report medication errors.ConclusionsThis three-hour laboratory experience was partially effective at improving students’ attitudes about medication errors and systematic approaches to improving medication safety. Efforts to improve error reporting require further study. This class introduced the fundamental concepts of medication safety and was effective at changing students’ attitudes about the genesis and prevention of errors.