Developing an integrated curriculum for patient safety in an undergraduate nursing program: a case study

BACKGROUND: Nursing students’ practical training should begin when students can apply core knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to patient safety. This necessitates an integrated curriculum in nursing education that links practice to the theory concerning patient safety to enhance patient safety competencies and quality in nursing care. This study aimed to develop an integrated curriculum that incorporates patient safety factors in the existing curriculum to increase patient safety competencies in nursing students. METHOD: A case study approach was adopted to explain the development processes of a new curriculum integrating patient safety in the existing outcome-based curriculum of a nursing college. Based on the existing outcome-based curriculum of a nursing college, a four-step process was performed to integrate patient safety component, including quality improvement, into the curriculum: 1) literature review, 2) analysis of course syllabus, 3) selection of courses related to patient safety topics, and 4) development of evaluation tool. RESULTS: The integrated patient safety curriculum was based on six topics: patient safety principles, teamwork, communication, patient engagement, risk management and, quality improvement, and International Patient Safety Goals. Based on the characteristics of the course according to the level of students in each year, the curriculum was integrated to address patient safety topics in seven courses (four theoretical and three practical). A Patient safety Competency self-assessment checklist was developed for students to naturally acquire patient safety competencies in clinical settings. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated that patient safety topics should be addressed in both theoretical and practical settings across the entire nursing curriculum per the continuity and sequence of education principles. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12912-021-00694-0.