Measuring patient safety knowledge and competences as perceived by nursing students: An Italian validation study

• In the context of nursing education, it is necessary to support the learning process appropriately with an instrument capable of measuring student perceptions of Patient Safety (PS) knowledge and competence.
• The Health Professional Education in Patient Safety Survey is a valid tool capable of evaluating the nursing students' self-perception of patient safety knowledge and competence.
• The instrument could be adopted in the educational settings as a periodical nursing student report helping to reflect on PS issues, and evaluate gaps in knowledge and competences.
• Periodical self-reports may offer the opportunity to tailor educational strategies to fill the gaps in patients safety knowledge and competences that emerge.

The study sought to validate the Italian version of the Health Professional Education in Patient Safety Survey (H-PEPSS), an instrument used to assess the perceptions of health professionals regarding patient safety competence. The H-PEPSS was administered to a sample of 574 bachelor degree nursing students in two north-eastern Italian universities. Its factor structure, validity and reliability were examined using explorative factor analysis. The internal consistency of the Italian version of H-PEPSS (H-PEPSSIta) measured with Cronbach's alpha (α) was higher for both classroom (.938) and clinical training (.942) dimensions. The six factors that emerged from the analysis were composed of three to five items loading ≥.55 and explaining 69.344% of the classroom total variance and 70.425% of the clinical training total variance of the H-PEPSSIta. The H-PEPSSIta is a valid tool capable of evaluating the self-perception of nursing students regarding patient safety knowledge and competence. Therefore, the instrument could be adopted in educational settings as a periodic nursing student report. This may help students reflect on PS related-issues, and evaluate gaps in knowledge and competences; furthermore, data emerging from periodic self-reports may offer the opportunity to tailor educational strategies to fill the gaps in PS knowledge and competences that emerge.