Nurses' and students' perception of risk from medical practices

OBJECTIVES: To determine the risk perceptions of a series of medical practices in non-expert (undergraduates) and expert (nurses) samples. METHODS: Four hundred and forty-seven nurses and 246 undergraduate students participated in this study. They all answered questionnaires about the risk dimensions and acceptance for medical practices. RESULTS: An exploratory factor analysis on participants' answers to various dimensions of risk yielded a two-factor structure for risk perception in both samples: for nurses, the factors were “Unknown” and “Dread,” while for students, they were “Dread” and “Lack of Independence.” For both nurses and students, the factor scores of Dread negatively related to individual risk acceptance of medical practices. Furthermore, nurses tended to be more accepting of practices that they knew well (i.e., low Unknown scale scores). For students, the subscale scores of the Lack of Independence factor negatively related to individual risk acceptance only for health examination practices. Nurses conceived risks more correctly and concretely compared to students. This was especially pronounced for practices related to medication use. CONCLUSIONS: Although both nurses and students conceived various risk contents from medical practices, their conceptions still differed. Knowledge of these differences in the structure of risk perception and conceived risk contents of various medical practices between nurses and students could be utilized to improve risk communication in clinical practice.