Determination of pharmacy students’ patient safety approach using the theory of planned behaviour: a mixed-method study

OBJECTIVES: To investigate pharmacy students’ attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, intentions and their behaviour towards patient safety using a theory of planned behaviour framework. DESIGN: Mixed-methods research. SETTING: Private university in Malaysia. PARTICIPANTS: Pharmacy undergraduate students participated in the study. There were 18 students participated in the qualitative study and 272 students responded to the survey questionnaire. METHODS: A convergent parallel-mixed method design, involving a quantitative survey and qualitative focus group discussions was used among pharmacy students in a private university in Malaysia. Qualitative data of transcribed verbatim texts were then subjected to a thematic content analysis framework. Multiple correlations were undertaken using the quantitative data to examine how the dependent variable (self-reported knowledge) related to the independent variables (attitudes, behavioural intentions, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control. PRIMARY OUTCOME: Pharmacy students’ attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, behavioural intentions constructs led to their behaviour towards patient safety. SECONDARY OUTCOME: The quantitative study revealed that there was a moderate positive correlation between students’ self-reported knowledge and attitudes (r=0.48, p=0.03). RESULTS: Pharmacy students’ attitudes and perceived behavioural control constructs had positive correlations with pharmacy students’ self-reported knowledge on patient safety. There was no correlation between students’ self-reported knowledge and subjective norms (r=0.27, p=0.23). There was a weak positive correlation between students’ self-reported knowledge and perceived behavioural control (r=0.39, p=0.04). There was no correlation between students’ self-reported knowledge and behavioural intention (r=0.20, p=0.56). CONCLUSIONS: Theory of planned behaviour constructs such as attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and behavioural intentions of pharmacy students, defined their behaviour towards patient safety. Pharmacy students’ attitudes and perceived behavioural control constructs were correlated with their self-reported knowledge on patient safety.