Self-directed Learning (SDL) of Medication Safety Issues by Using a Dual Function (Educational & Supervisory) Checklist in Clinical Settings

Objectives: Main goal in this study was to design and introduce a standard checklist that medical interns to be able to apply it to assess the medication safety status in clinical settings and learn the facts related to this issue simultaneously. Methods: We performed the following steps to conduct the study: (1) using brainstorming and fishbone method for collecting problems in six domains including: demographic and risk factors, prescribing, transcribing, usage, storage and management; (2) collecting the medication standards and indicators; (3) designing a problem oriented checklist, including 85 questions; (4) verifying the validity and reliability of designed checklist by Delphi method and conducting a pilot study. The Cronbach's alpha co efficient were good (more than0.7); (5) to perform of pretest; (6) teaching and introducing of 10 valid evidences to answer the checklist questions in three day workshop to 41 medical interns; (7) after the workshop, students applied the mentioned checklist for assessment of drug safety status on 151 hospitalized patients with the aim of learning during assessment; (8) monitoring of patient’s medication safety status by the interns and self -learning simultaneously; and finally (9) we used Student self-assessment of medication safety education goals, before and after self-training with our checklists. Results: A standard checklist with dual functions (self-learning during assessment) was developed. Difference between pre-test and post test scores was statistical significant (P ≤ 0.001) and 92% of participants were satisfied with this type of training. Conclusions: We recommend our designed checklist to all clinical educators who are engaged in medication safety domain.