Teaching patient safety in a virtual learning environment
Patient safety; Health education; E-learning.
Adverse events have major impact on patient safety, increases hospital stay and health care costs. The adoption of health care protocols and promotion of education on “Patient safety” subject are means that aims the reduction of health care related risks. Faced on this need to disseminate this issue, the Distance Education emerges as a viable strategy to health care students and professional’s capacitation. Thus, this study aims to assess the reaction and the learning of the students in relation to the virtual learning environment strategy. The method that was used in this study was an action-research-training with a development of an educational module — Patient safety on the medication process — and, through the Kirkpatrick’s model, were developed satisfaction questionnaires and tests to evaluate, respectively, the reaction and learning of the participants. From the sample of 185 participants, it was possible to identify that the module in a virtual environment was satisfactory as an educational strategy, obtaining a median score of 96.1% (93.0% - 97.3%) and a satisfactory Cronbach coefficient (0,8). Regarding the level of learning, after the pre and post-test application, the increase in grades (from 8.1 to 8.6) of the participants with statistical significance was observed (p <0.05). The virtual learning environment course presented dynamic and interactive content, providing a creative way to address the daily practice and risks inherent in the medication process. Thereby, we can conclude that the e-learning was effective as a capacitation strategy and can be used to disseminate others patient safety related subjects.