Effect of online education on the knowledge on, attitudes towards, and skills in patient safety for nursing students in Korea: a mixed-methods study

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of synchronous online education on the patient safety competency (knowledge, attitudes, and skills) of nursing students in Korea and to explore what they thought about this educational method. METHODS: A single-group pre-and post-test design and summative content analysis were implemented. On November 14th, 2020, 110 nursing students completed synchronous online patient safety education. Patient safety competency was measured before and after the intervention using the revised Patient Safety Competency Self-Evaluation tool. The descriptive statistics, paired t-test, and Wilcoxon signed-rank test were used to analyze the data. Students also expressed their opinions about this education based on open-ended questions. RESULTS: All the patient safety competency scores significantly increased after intervention. A summative content analysis of the open-ended questions yielded 5 categories: educational materials, education level, education time, interaction, and educational media. CONCLUSION: This study found that synchronous online patient safety education improves nursing students’ knowledge on, attitudes towards, and skills in patient safety. Nursing students also expressed a variety of positive aspects of the online education method. To improve the efficacy of synchronous online patient safety education, there is a need for further empirical studies on the appropriate class duration and difficulty of the content. It is essential to find a way to combine online education with various learning activities.