Patient safety teaching in undergraduate health programs: Reflections on knowledge and practice

Abstract

This study was intended to analyze pedagogic projects of undergraduate courses in Nursing, Pharmacy, Physiotherapy, and Medicine in the Federal University of Sao Paulo, in order to appraise the contents of patient safety teaching in those courses. The study is of descriptive and exploratory nature using as strategy a documental review. The documents analyzed were the Pedagogic Projects of the courses. The teaching contents on patient safety were found to be fragmented, without the depth and conceptual scope recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Each course highlights the specific topics related to the pretended formative process. Inserting and trying to unify the contents on patient safety is still in its beginning in Brazilian schools and it is not present in the educational objectives. There is a need of reviewing the curricula using an interdisciplinary and trans disciplinary approach to develop this topic.