ArticleBMJ open2018
Undergraduate medical students' behavioural intentions towards medical errors and how to handle them: a qualitative vignette study.
Article in BMJ open, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Unveiling the hidden struggle of healthcare students as second victims through a systematic review.BMC medical education · 2024Pooled it
- Using clinical cases with diagnostic errors and malpractice claims: impact on anxiety and diagnostic performance in GP clinical reasoning education.Advances in health sciences education : theory and practice · 2025Trial
- Exploring sensitive topics in assessment research through vignette-based interviewing.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- Medical students' attitudes toward patient safety and medical error reporting in Syria.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- Undergraduate Nursing Students' Attitudes Toward Patient Safety: a Qualitative Study.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Article
- Anesthesi̇a students' behavi̇ors towards a medi̇cal errors: a phenomenologi̇cal quali̇tati̇ve scenari̇o study.BMC anesthesiology · 2025Article
- Patient safety and ethical attitudes among dentistry and dental assisting students: a cross-sectional study.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- When words fail us: An integrative review of innovative elicitation techniques for qualitative interviews.Medical education · 2025Review
- How Malpractice and Error Cases Influence Information Recall in General Practice Residents, a Vignette Study.Perspectives on medical education · 2025Article
- Attitudes towards patient safety among physicians and nurses in Iranian governmental teaching hospitals: a cross-sectional survey.BMJ open · 2024Article
- Medical students' experiences, perceptions, and management of second victim: an interview study.BMC medical education · 2023Article
- The Experience of Patient Safety Error for Nursing Students in COVID-19: Focusing on King's Conceptual System Theory.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- The Relationship between Professional Identity, Performance and Attitude to Medical Errors Self-reporting among Medical Students.Journal of advances in medical education & professionalism · 2023Article
- Patient safety in medical education: Tunisian students' attitudes.The Libyan journal of medicine · 2022Article
- Evaluating medical students' ability to identify and report errors: finding gaps in patient safety education.Medical education online · 2022Article
- Development and testing of the situational judgement test to measure safety performance of healthcare professionals: An explorative cross-sectional study.Nursing open · 2022Article
- Undergraduate medical students' attitudes towards medical errors and patient safety: a multi-center cross-sectional study in the Gaza Strip, Palestine.BMC medical education · 2020Article
- When Bad Things Happen: Training Medical Students to Anticipate the Aftermath of Medical Errors.Academic psychiatry : the journal of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the Association for Academic Psychiatry · 2020Article
- Attitudes of doctors and nurses to patient safety and errors in medical practice in the Gaza-Strip: a cross-sectional study.BMJ open · 2019Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
objectivesIn undergraduate medical education, the topics of errors in medicine and patient safety are under-represented. The aim of this study was to explore undergraduate medical students' behavioural intentions when confronted with an error.
designA qualitative case vignette survey was conducted including one of six randomly distributed case scenarios in which a hypothetical but realistic medical error occurred. The six scenarios differed regarding (1) who caused the error, (2) the presence of witnesses and (3) the consequences of the error for the patient. Participants were asked: 'What would you do?". Answers were collected as written free texts and analysed according to qualitative content analysis.
settingStudents from German medical schools participated anonymously through an online questionnaire tool.
participantsAltogether, n=159 students answered a case scenario. Participants were on average 24.6 years old (SD=7.9) and 69% were female. They were undergraduate medical students in their first or second year (n=27), third, fourth or fifth year (n=107) or final year (n=21).
resultsDuring the inductive coding process, 19 categories emerged from the original data and were clustered into four themes: (1) considering communication; (2) considering reporting; (3) considering consequences; and (4) emotional responsiveness. When the student him/herself caused the error in the scenario, participants did mention communication with colleagues and taking preventive action less frequently than if someone else had caused the error. When a witness was present, participants more frequently mentioned disclosure of the error and taking actions than in the absence of a witness. When the outcome was significant to the patient, participants more often showed an emotional response than if there were no consequences.
conclusionsThe study highlights the importance of coping strategies for healthcare professionals to adequately deal with errors. Educators need to introduce knowledge and skills on how to deal with errors and emotional preparedness for errors into undergraduate medical education.
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