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

 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.

 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.

 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.

 We recommend our designed checklist to all clinical educators who are engaged in medication safety domain.