Does medical students’ personality traits influence their attitudes toward medical errors?

Abstract

This study examined medical students’ perceptions towards medical errors and the policy of the hospital within the internship curriculum, and explored how aspects of personality traits of medical students relate to their attitude toward medical errors. Based on the theory of the Five-Factor-Model (FFM) and related literature review, this study adopted a self-devised structured questionnaire to distribute to 493 medical students in years five to seven in the top three medical schools, representing a 56.7% valid questionnaire response rate. Results showed that agreeableness is more important than other personality traits, and medical students with high agreeableness are good communicators and have a more positive attitude to avoid errors in the future. On the contrary, students with low neuroticism tended to be more relaxed and gentle. If medical educators can recruit new students with high agreeableness, these students will be more likely to effectively improve the quality of medical care and enhance patient safety. This study anticipates that this method could be easily translated to nearly every medical department entry examination, particularly with regards to a consciousness-based education of future physicians.