Patient safety and infection control: bases for curricular integration

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Infection Prevention and Control
• Patient Safety

Background:

• Effective patient safety education is crucial for healthcare professionals.
• Integrating infection prevention and control (IPC) practices into curricula is essential for patient well-being.
• Understanding current curricular integration is key to improving health professional training.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the curricular integration of patient safety and infection prevention and control (IPC) practices in undergraduate health field courses.
• To investigate how content related to patient safety teaching and IPC practices is incorporated into health-related curricula.

Main Methods:

• An integrative review methodology was employed.
• A comprehensive search was conducted across multiple databases including CINAHL, LILACS, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, Scopus, Europe PMC, and MEDLINE.
• The review focused on primary studies addressing the curricular integration of patient safety and IPC.

Main Results:

• The final analysis included 13 studies.
• Primary studies were categorized into two main themes: "Innovative teaching practices" and "Curricular evaluation."
• Findings indicate that patient safety concerning IPC is addressed in health undergraduate curricula.

Conclusions:

• Patient safety, particularly in relation to IPC, is present in health undergraduate curricula.
• However, the integration is often uncoordinated with other subject matter and taught sporadically.
• Current teaching predominantly emphasizes hand hygiene, suggesting a need for broader and more cohesive IPC education.