Table 4.
Items of knowledge scale
| Items | Mean (S.D.) | Corrected item-total correlation |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Which of the following is most likely to decrease the risk of medical errors? | ||
| a. Accept them as an inevitable outcome of patient care and focus very hard on avoiding them | 0.71 (0.46) | 0.12 |
| b. Examine how the system is setting providers up to make errors and try to fix it | ||
| c. Make it clear to providers that errors will not be tolerated, and discipline providers who make errors leading to patient harm | ||
| d. Since trainees are responsible for most errors, increase the length of training to ensure everyone is competent | ||
| 2. Which of the following is true regarding medical errors? | ||
| a. If no lasting harm is done to the patient, it’s not really an error and doesn’t need to be addressed | 0.94 (0.23) | 0.14 |
| b. Patients are unable to tell when an error occurs, so their opinion should be ignored | ||
| c. An error that doesn’t result in any harm is an opportunity to find a hole in the system and prevent future harm | ||
| d. After an error occurs, the hospital should avoid telling anyone, and solve it on their own without involving the patient | ||
| e. Ever since the IOM report “To Err is Human”, the number of medical errors has decreased and it’s no longer a problem | ||
| 3. A student incorrectly records a patient’s drug allergies, this is classified as what type of medical error? | ||
| a. Slip | 0.24 (0.43) | 0.28 |
| b. Lapse | ||
| c. Mistake | ||
| d. Violation | ||
| 4. A physician forgets to order a patient’s medications, this is classified as what type of medical error? | ||
| a. Slip | 0.64 (0.48) | 0.34 |
| b. Lapse | ||
| c. Mistake | ||
| d. Violation | ||
| 5. A physician misreads a radiograph resulting in a misdiagnosis, this is classified as what type of medical error? | ||
| a. Slip | 0.77 (0.42) | 0.20 |
| b. Lapse | ||
| c. Mistake | ||
| d. Violation | ||
| 6. A surgeon rushes the surgical team to start surgery, ignoring the charge nurse’s wishes to perform a timeout, this is classified as what type of medical error? | ||
| a. Slip | 0.88 (0.33) | 0.36 |
| b. Lapse | ||
| c. Mistake | ||
| d. Violation | ||
| 7. Which individuals are likely affected by a surgical error? | ||
| a. The patient and his family | 0.94 (0.24) | 0.25 |
| b. The physician in charge of the surgery | ||
| c. The second year resident assisting the physician | ||
| d. The nurse on the team | ||
| e. All of the above | ||
| 8. Effective systems focused on ensuring safety and preventing errors require: | ||
| a. Collaboration among physicians | 0.97 (0.17) | 0.33 |
| b. Collaboration among nurses | ||
| c. Collaboration among patients and families | ||
| d. Collaboration of the interprofessional team with the patient and family | ||
| 9. What is the point of a protocol? | ||
| a. To standardize the delivery of care and help providers perform optimally | 0.87 (0.34) | 0.19 |
| b. To standardize the delivery of care and protect providers from lawsuit if an error occurs | ||
| c. To standardize the delivery of care so that patients know what to expect when they go to the doctor | ||
| d. To standardize the delivery of care and prevent providers from developing their own techniques | ||
| 10. Most patient harm is the result of: | ||
| a. A bad decision from one individual on the team | 0.76 (0.43) | 0.17 |
| b. The bad performance of a physician | ||
| c. A series of system errors | ||
| d. Lack of time | ||
| e. The complexity of the procedure | ||
| Knowledge scale score, mean (SD), Cronbach’s alpha (score range: 1–10) | 7.53 (1.83) | 0.62 |
Bold, Italic, and underline items are correct answers