Dentists' Attitudes to the Preprocedural Safety Checklist "Time-Out" in Saudi Arabia

Before performing medical procedures, there is a patient safety initiative process (also referred to as "time-out"), part of this process is the use of a preprocedural safety checklist. This initiative was envisioned by the World Health Organization, supported by various accreditation bodies who include the process in their standards. Dentistry lags behind its medical colleagues in using it presurgical or invasive procedure. Our aim was to understand dentists' attitudes and knowledge about the process and their adherence to it.

A cross-sectional questionnaire was distributed between September and December 2021 and 102 dentists responded.

Seventy three of the respondents (71.5%) claimed to be familiar with the time-out process, and 87 (85.3%) felt that it was an important or somewhat important process; however, only 62 (60.7%) were always performing the process before surgical or invasive outpatient procedures.

Patient safety must be given priority, as such it has been shown that preprocedural checklists help reduce medical errors. Recognizing the value of performing such a process, accreditation bodies have included the process in their standards and indeed in the Joint Commission focused patient safety goals.